Text and image by K8, Sónia Alves & Julia Pierzina
Technology is only as good as the thinking behind it. In the Twin4Resilience project, two microlearning units push municipalities to ask harder questions: not just how to build a Local Digital Twin, but why, and for whom.
Start with the "Why"
Cities across Europe are investing in Local Digital Twins. They model traffic flows, simulate flood scenarios, visualise energy consumption, and map mobility patterns. The technology is impressive. But technology, on its own, does not transform a city.
Transformation requires something else: a clear sense of the value you are trying to create. Who benefits? What changes? And what kind of future are you actually building toward?
These questions lie at the heart of two Education and Training Framework microlearning units developed within the T4R project: 'Exploring The Value of Resilience' (EDU-204) and 'System Value Proposition' (EDU-205). Together, they suggest that a Local Digital Twin is only as powerful as the thinking that shapes it. That thinking begins with people and communities, is guided by shared public value, and grows through a capacity to learn, adapt, and respond to change.
Resilience: More Than Bouncing Back
We talk about resilience a lot. But what does it actually mean for a municipality?
EDU-204 offers a clear answer. Resilience is not about returning to a previous state after a crisis. It is about adapting, evolving, and sometimes transforming when disruption hits. A resilient city is one that keeps functioning under stress, learns from shocks, and emerges stronger.
Think of it this way: when a bridge closes for repairs, traffic finds another route. It slows down, but it keeps moving. Resilience is that capacity to persist and continue, even when the preferred path is no longer available.
For municipalities, resilience shows up across three interconnected layers. There is institutional resilience: the strength of governance structures to remain legitimate under pressure. There is operational resilience: the ability to keep critical services running when systems are stressed. And there is community resilience: the collective capacity of citizens to support each other when formal systems reach their limits.
None of these layers functions well in isolation. A community that knows how to organise during a flood is far stronger when municipal flood defences and early warning systems are also in place. And technical systems are far less effective when citizens do not trust or understand them. This is the key insight from systems thinking: resilience does not live in any single element. It emerges from how elements interact.
This is precisely where Local Digital Twins enter the picture. An LDT can simulate a heavy rain event before it happens, model the cascading effects of a mobility disruption, or test energy system stress under a heatwave. It transforms resilience from an aspiration into something measurable and actionable. In Bavaria, the TwinBy programme supports municipalities of different sizes in developing digital twins that help analyse and simulate local challenges in areas such as mobility, energy, and urban planning, enabling planners to test scenarios before decisions are made. Helsinki's LDT combines open 3D models, environmental data, and participatory tools that allow residents to explore their neighbourhoods and engage with planning and sustainability initiatives.
But the module Creating Public Value makes one more important point. Resilience is not a static property. It is a capacity that can be developed and strengthened through scenario planning, stress tests, collaboration, and continuous learning. Disruption, when taken seriously, is more than something to survive. It can become an opportunity to rethink priorities, adapt institutions, and build stronger and more equitable systems. This is where resilience connects to two related ideas: sustainability and regeneration. Sustainability focused on maintaining the social, economic, and environmental conditions that communities depend on. Regeneration goes a step further by actively restoring and improving those conditions. Municipalities that can balance resilience, sustainability, and regeneration are better equiped to navigate uncertainty while creating long-term public value.
Value: Plural, Not
Singular
Resilience is one important reason municipalities invest in Local Digital Twins. But is also raises a broader question: what kind of value are we creating, and for whom?
This is where EDU-205 comes in, introducing the concept of the System Value Proposition (SVP). The core idea is deceptively simple: in public sector contexts, value is never singular. It is multi-dimensional and contested.
A public transport initiative cannot be judged solely by ridership numbers. It must also be assessed by how it improves access for people with limited mobility, reduces emissions, supports local businesses, and strengthens citizens' trust in urban governance. The same logic applies to a Local Digital Twin. It is not just a technical model. It is a means of pursuing value, across economic, social, ecological, and institutional dimensions. There are even other dimensions - political, cultural, or even psychological that can be considered, depending on your priorities at the moment. An adapted version of the Value Proposition Canvas can be used to create your own dimension map.
The SVP framework, developed by Jones and Van Ael (2022), gives municipalities a practical way to make this visible. It connects two things that often drift apart in public projects: destination (the future you want to create) and delivery (the concrete actions, the to-dos, infrastructures, and governance arrangements that get you there). A destination without delivery remains aspirational. Delivery without destination risks becoming a collection of disconnected actions that lack a clear sense of purpose.
Real examples from across Europe show what this looks like in practice. Bologna's LDT is explicitly framed around a policy aim: creating a more just, fair, and sustainable city. Through the SVP lens, this ambition can be understood as creating value across multiple dimensions, including environmental sustainability, social inclusion, economic development, and more participatory forms of urban governance. Helsinki's 3D+ programme combines open city models, building-level energy information, and participatory tools, that allows residents to explore visual representations of their neighbourhoods and engage with discussions about energy and urban development. Rotterdam's digital twin models flood scenarios so that planners, utility providers, and communities can test adaptation strategies before committing to major investments.
What all these cases share is that the value proposition gains legitimacy precisely because it emerges from collaboration: across technical, political, and social actors. Systemic value cannot simply be imposed. It is more likely to emerge when organisations design together with those who share the system.
This brings co-creation to the center of the SVP approach. Citizens, communities, partners, and public institutions all play a role in shaping what is valuable and how that value is delivered. Participatory workshops, digital platforms, and ongoing dialogue play an important role in ensuring that value propositions remain relevant, credible, and responsive to community needs.
One more thing matters here: value is not fixed. What matters to a community today may shift as technologies, demographics, and expectations evolve. The SVP is therefore not a one-time exercise. It is an evolving commitment, a living compass that must be revisited as the system changes. This is especially true for digital twins, which are themselves constantly updated as new data and new challenges emerge.
A useful companion to the SVP is the IOOI model[1], which helps municipalities connect long-term ambitions to concrete actions by making visible how inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impacts relate to one another. In the context of an LDT, this matters enormously. Installing a digital twin is an output. Citizens using it to engage with planning decisions is an outcome. A city that makes more equitable and transparent decisions as a result is the impact. The IOOI model encourages municipalities to build a realistic roadmap toward their goals, working backwards from the impact they want to achieve and identifying what outputs and outcomes are needed to get there. It makes ambition measurable, without making it rigid.
People First, Technology Second
Both modules point in the same direction. For genuine transformation to take place, values must be identified before tools are selected. The question is not "what can our LDT do?" but "what future do we want, and how can an LDT help us get there?"
At the center of that question are people: citizens who need to be involved, communities whose knowledge must be heard, and public servants who need not only access to data, but also the capacity to learn from it, adapt to changing circumstances, and act on it effectively.
This is the real contribution of the Twin4Resilience training programme. It is not only about developing technical competence. It is about strengthening the capabilities needed to navigate uncertainty, balance different forms or value, and make decisions that serve both present and future generations. The technology continues to evolve. The frameworks and methods are increasingly available. The challenge now is to use them with purpose, and with a genuine commitment to the communities that cities exist to serve.
[1] Bertelsmann Stiftung / Riess, B. (Ed.) (2010). Corporate Citizenship planen und messen mit der iooi-Methode. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung, S. 20ff. (Adapted from the London Benchmarking Group model and evaluation research traditions.)
This post draws on content from T4R Microlearning Units EDU-204 (Exploring the Value of Resilience) and EDU-205 (Your Organization's Value Proposition: Co-Creating Future System Value), developed by the K8 Institute for strategic Aesthetics as innovation support partner in the Twin4Resilience project.