Last Friday, I was very glad to be invited to participate in the launch event of the Jean Monnet module “DETWIN-GOV: Digital Environmental Twins for Sustainable EU Governance“, coordinated by Dr Stefania Attolini at the Université Catholique de Lyon (Annecy campus).

The topic of this project is particularly close to my heart, having worked on the data governance of EU’s city digital twins over the 3.5 years I spent at TU Delft as a senior researcher.

Over the next three years, the Jean Monnet module will deliver 159 hours of teaching activities, combining lectures, external expert seminars and pedagogical simulations based on digital twin scenarios. These activities will support the production of Open Educational Resources, academic articles and a collective volume reflecting on digital twin and governance.

The goal is to introduce university students to the growing role of digital twins – virtual models replicating complex physical systems (environmental, urban and industrial) – in enabling the EU’s green-digital transition. Notably, the module will unpack CDTs’ legal, ethical, and democratic implications, in connection with key policies and legislation such as the European Green Deal, the AI Act and the EU Data Strategy.

Here the slides of my presentation, which summarize my work on CDTs.

Building on an ERC Starting grant application I wrote in 2023 (unfortunately unsuccesful), here are three articles that tackle some of the issues – a sociotechnical approach to urban digital twinning (UDT), data commoning for the sharing of UDT’s data, and UDT’s contextual, iterative, and participatory governance – also central the DETWIN-GOV project:

• Calzati, S., van Loenen, B. (2023): “Towards a Citizen- and Citizenry-Centric Digitalization of the Urban Environment: Urban Digital Twinning as Commoning.” Digital Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-023-00064-0
• Calzati, S. (2023). “No Longer Hype, Not Yet Mainstream? Recalibrating City Digital Twins’ Expectations and Implementations: A Case Study Perspective.” Frontiers in Big Data, https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2023.1236397
• Calzati, S., Ploeger, H. (2024). “Problem-solving? No, problem-opening! A Method to Reframe and Teach Data Ethics as a Transdisciplinary Endeavour.” Big Data & Society https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241270687