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WS2 Piloting Activities - Creation of LDTs Based on Common Needs

Brief Overview

This Work Strand focuses on supporting key policy scenarios and addressing common needs such as urban mobility, climate change mitigation, optimising energy grids, mitigating air pollution, managing waste, and enhancing water resource management. The aim is to help cities and communities develop new Local Digital Twins (LDTs) that directly respond to real urban challenges.

Key facts:

  • 6–8 pilots will be selected
  • Start of the pilots: May/November 2026
  • Duration: 18 months
  • Funding: 50% co-funding required
  • Second Round of open calls: February 2026
  • Third Round of open calls: May 2026

👉 Second round of open calls now OPEN. Check it out here. Apply by 15/04/2026, 23:59 CET.

What is the goal?

  • Build new LDTs around pressing policy priorities (mobility, climate, energy, environment, waste, water).
  • Enable cities to model and manage infrastructure and services more effectively.
  • Share and replicate solutions across communities facing similar challenges.
  • Create a focused market for innovative solutions that have clear demand and impact.

Who Are We Looking For?

We invite applications from:

  • Cities, municipalities, groups of municipalities, or regions seeking to develop new LDTs.
  • Municipalities, groups of municipalities, or regions gathered around at least one common use case, who wish to solve a common challenge together.
  • Technology providers, academic and research institutions ready to work with public authorities to ensure that solutions are scalable and replicable.

Minimum consortium composition:

  • At least 2 public entities
  • Plus 1 other partner from the following:
    → Private entity (e.g., service provider)
    → Private association (legal status)
    → Trusted third party
    → Representative of a use-case sector

WS2 Requirements Cheat Sheet

This is a cheat sheet for Work Strand 2 (Creating New Local Digital Twins based on Common Needs). For a complete list of requirements, please refer to the specific Call for Pilots Manual.

🎯 Minimum Conditions

  • 🏛️ 2+ local/regional public authorities from 2 different eligible countries
    → No LDT required upfront (but see Rc1 for digital maturity)
  • 🤝 At least 1 additional partner (private entity, association, trusted third party, or sector representative)
  • 🔀 1+ cross-sectoral use case that is innovative and citizen-focused, with 2 services (Rq3)
  • 🤝 Common need shared across pilot consortium members (Rq5)

📋 Describe in the Application Form

  • Existing platforms (if any: GIS, open-data, dashboards) + capabilities (Rq2)
    → Include URL/screenshots, architecture diagrams, data lifecycle
  • Current data governance scheme for each pilot site (Rq4)
    → Target governance across political • technical • legal • organisational
  • Shared local challenge addressed by the pilot (Rq5)
    → Ambition and rationale for jointly developing the LDT
  • Alignment with EU priorities and LDT4SSC objectives (Rq6)
    → Green Deal, New European Bauhaus, LDT4SSC challenges
  • Project management and coordination (Rq7)
    → Teams, collaboration, recruitment, political endorsement
  • End-user engagement strategy (Rq8)
    → End-users must test the service before replication
  • Quadruple Helix stakeholders (Rq9)
    → 3 of 4 groups required (public • private • research • civil society)
  • Broader applicability and relevance for other EU communities (Rq10)
  • EU initiatives alignment (Rq11)
    → DSSC, Gaia-X, SIMPL, LDT Toolbox...
  • AI/XR/edge computing usage + ethical/legal safeguards (Rq20)
  • AI Act compliance for AI used in public services (Rq21)
  • Contribution to governance, efficiency, and innovation (Rq22)
  • Socio-economic and environmental effects + eco-design approach (Rq23)
  • Sustainability strategy post-pilot (Rq25)
    → Risks & mitigation (political, social, technical, operational, business, legal)
    → Plans for at least 1 year beyond project

🏗️ Build during the project

  • Develop a new common LDT based on shared needs (Rq13)
    → Each public authority must implement its own instance (≥2 instances)
  • Each LDT must provide management access to all 7 LDT Layers (Rq13):
    1. Data Sources Layer
    2. Data Acquisition Layer
    3. Knowledge Layer
    4. Interoperability Layer
    5. Services Layer
    6. Orchestration Layer
    7. Visualisation Layer
  • Advanced capability: Predictive, Prospective, or Prescriptive (Rq15)
    → LDT must be able to simulate scenarios

🧱 Provide as complementary material

  • 4 draft diagrams (Rq14):
    → Technical (deployment diagram, current + future)
    → Functional (activity diagram showing data lifecycle, current + future)
  • Letter of Intent from another public authority (not in consortium) supporting the shared challenge (Rq5)
  • Letter of Commitment with political endorsement
  • Ownership and Control Declaration (OCD)
  • Financial Form (.xlsx)
  • Ethics and Data Protection Self-Assessment
  • Contractual framework for LDT sustainability (Rq24)

🛠️ Engage during the project

Pilots are expected to engage with:

  • LDT4SSC methodology phases: Explore → Validate → Define → Implement (Rq12)
  • Semantic interoperability (MIM1) using open standards (Rq17)
    → e.g., NGSI-LD, LDES
  • Interoperability self-assessment: achieve score ≥3 by end (Rq18)
  • At least 5 foundational MIMs Plus (MIM0, MIM1, MIM2, MIM3, MIM6) (Rq19)
  • LDT4SSC Assets and Services Repository for asset sharing (Rq27)
  • Open repositories for data models (Rq28)
  • Up-to-date documentation for LDT4SSC consortium (Rq31)

✏️ Specify upon application

  • Data, assets, services to be shared, sectors involved, providers and beneficiaries (Rq16)
  • MIMs Plus (MIM0–MIM8) the project will engage with (Rq19)
    → Current and planned compliance level (Initial, Partial, Full)
  • Main expected assets to be produced (Rq26)
    → See Annex 2.9 for list of potential assets
  • Deployment approach (hosted, SaaS, on-premise) (Rq14)
  • Replicability, Transferability, Scalability measures (Rq30)
    → Describe how assets can be transferred to at least one additional context
  • Equivalent open-source solution, if proprietary components used (Rq29)

⭐ Recommendations

  • Assess LORDIMAS maturity (Rc1)
    → Pilot Lead: Digitally Optimised
    → Others: ≥ Moderate
  • Include 3+ public authorities for better replicability demonstration (Rc2)
  • Use open-source technical components and share enhancements (Rc2, Rc5)
  • Pursue alignment with LDT Toolbox (Rc3)
  • Consider federation with WS1 pilots using SIMPL GA Agent (Rc4)
  • Include IP and exploitation rights in consortium agreement (Rc6)
  • Technically establish (Rc7):
    → DCAT data catalogue
    → Data management system (JSON-LD, RDF, NGSI-LD)
    → IAM (OAuth2, OpenID Connect, Verifiable Credentials)
    → ODRL-based data policy
  • Use MIT or Apache open licence (Rc8)
  • Record baseline data for Cost-Benefit Analysis (Rc9)
  • Assess eco-design maturity (General Policy Framework for Ecodesign) (Rc10)
    → At least 30 highest-priority criteria

💰 Financial Rules

  • Maximum grant per third-party: €500,000
  • Maximum cumulative grant per consortium: €1,000,000
  • Co-funding: 50% of total pilot costs from applicants' own resources
  • Indirect costs: 7% flat rate of direct costs