Unlocking Interoperability: Europe and the European Citiverses Uniting for Inclusiveness Project Perspective.
This Level Up session explored how interoperability is crucial for scalable solutions and integral to the EU's digital transformation, encompassing technical standards, principles, organisation, governance, and regulations. Claus Popp Larsen, Head of 'Connected Cities', RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, who is convinced that interoperability is key to better cities and happier citizens in a more sustainable world, delivered a presentation. You can now watch the session to discover what you should be aware of and how you can contribute to our common responsibility in achieving seamless interoperability. The session took place on April 29, 2025.
More about the concept Level Up EU Training for synergy impact
Training sessions designed to strengthen skills, ensure compliance, social innovation, and spark collaboration across the project community.
These sessions are designed to enhance our project community’s collective knowledge and ensure seamless adherence to relevant, project-specific EU regulatory frameworks, the technical landscape, and our overall project objectives.
This initiative strengthens our shared competence base and promotes alignment with the project's ethical, legal, and inclusive ambitions. By growing together as a community of practice, we ensure that the CU project sets a new benchmark for accessible and responsible digital twin development in Europe.
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This session provides an overview of Europe’s work on interoperability through the Minimum Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs) – a set of open standards and guidelines for sharing and reusing data across cities – and the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative, which develops digital twins of the Earth to support climate and environmental decision-making.
Our project partners Mila Koeva, University of Twente, and Desislava Petrova-Antonova, GATE Institute, will present how the CU project aligns with and can contribute to MIM7 and MIM8, particularly in relation to geodata and Local Digital Twins. The session will also highlight how these frameworks connect to broader European developments and what this means for building scalable, interoperable and inclusive digital solutions for cities.
We are happy to have Jan Wester, Director of the LDT CitiVERSE EDIC attending this session. Jan will provide an overview of the LDT Citiverse EDIC and its strategic direction, exploring how governance models, interoperability frameworks and European data spaces connect Local Digital Twins, the Citiverse projects and shared digital infrastructure for cities.
The session will also address why the EU is leveraging the EDIC instrument and how it differs from traditional EU projects. You will gain insights into how EDIC governance can support coordination between countries, cities and European initiatives, while shared standards help reduce the risk of vendor lock-in.
The presentation highlights how different building blocks of the European Citiverse are beginning to align, including the LDT Toolbox and the MIMs. It also reflects on how the EDIC can contribute to a more predictable European market for interoperable digital solutions for cities.
This session provides a structured overview of the ethical governance model and legal safeguards guiding our project. We will review GDPR compliance, responsible AI oversight, data processing routines, and the protection of vulnerable groups, as defined in the project’s ethics commitments. The objective is to reinforce accountability, transparency, and alignment with EU regulatory requirements throughout implementation and reporting.
Monica Ek, representing WP1, will present the project's ethics governance, will lead the session and outline how ethical and legal safeguards are implemented across the project.
Kim Lantto, City of Gothenburg, Democracy and Citizen Administration, will contribute with insights into the practical implementation of citizen dialogue and data protection, highlighting how legal safeguards translate into operational routines and technical decision-making within the project.
