Periodic Reporting for period 2 - METACITIES (MetaCities Excellence Hub in South-Eastern Europe)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2024-04-01 do 2025-06-30
METACITIES project establishes an Excellence Hub that spans a large geographical area, that of Southeastern Europe, represented by three clusters in Cyprus, Greece, and Bulgaria. Each cluster consists of partners involved in the Quadruple Helix (i.e. scientific, industrial, social, public) with the aim to collaboratively design common digital Research and Innovation strategies, policies, and joint pilots, orchestrated towards the benefit of the citizens, the stakeholders, the local ecosystems and the growth of the whole southeast European region. Metacities EH builds upon Digital Twins (DTs) and metaverse technologies through cross-border collaboration. The technical objective of the METACITIES Excellence Hub relates to Digital Twin and Metaverse technologies for the benefit of the future cities.
Starting from the Physical World, representing the actual city or region, METACITIES propose a series of system blueprints and recommendations that can be used to successfully build their Digital Twins and Metaverses. METACITIES conceptual model represents an evolution of the notion of smart city, which usually implies the use of Information Communication Technologies for the processing of data and their statistical manifestations in the form of dashboards. As Digital Twins are directly and in real time, interconnected and interacting with the physical city, exchanging processing data and making decisions, they can execute actions on the city’s operations that may affect its daily life. Specific domains with strong social footprint are selected as reference implementation areas to guide and validate the proposed technological, collaboration and strategy framework and efficiently coordinate the input from the different actors: academic, business, public authorities and societal actors, comprising the three participating innovation ecosystems, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria.
Starting from the Physical World, representing the actual city or region, METACITIES propose a series of system blueprints and recommendations that can be used to successfully build their Digital Twins and Metaverses. METACITIES conceptual model represents an evolution of the notion of smart city, which usually implies the use of Information Communication Technologies for the processing of data and their statistical manifestations in the form of dashboards. As Digital Twins are directly and in real time, interconnected and interacting with the physical city, exchanging processing data and making decisions, they can execute actions on the city’s operations that may affect its daily life. Specific domains with strong social footprint are selected as reference implementation areas to guide and validate the proposed technological, collaboration and strategy framework and efficiently coordinate the input from the different actors: academic, business, public authorities and societal actors, comprising the three participating innovation ecosystems, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria.
METACITIES’ overall objective is to establish an Excellence Hub for future cities and regions in Southeast Europe, built upon Digital Twins (DTs) and metaverse technologies, through cross-border collaboration focusing on innovation and engaging all different categories of actors of the Quadruple Helix (QH).
The Metacities Excellence hub set the collaboration framework, investigated the local and regional R&I strategies with respect to the digital transformation of cities, related to the current state of Digital Twins (DTs) and Metaverse in SouthEast Europe (SEE), focusing on the key areas of development and the overall technological readiness of countries to embrace DTs and Metaverse technologies. To that respect various opportunities for collaboration among the Cyprus (CY), Bulgarian (BG), and Greek (GR) ecosystems within the context of the METACITIES project were investigated and outlined, with the goal of the creation of a joint framework for the successful adoption and implementation of Digital Twins and Metaverse technologies in SEE. To that respect and for the specific application area, goals, visions, and priority areas of each cluster are identified. The overlapping objectives among the different local strategies were harmonized and aligned towards the formation of common goals for the joint R&I strategy and the shared vision for the future of smart cities and smart regions was defined. This was performed with the definition of a Reference Model for Collaboration, based on the Quadruple Helix (QH) Approach, applied in the context of Smart Cities. This model is followed and properly adapted to the smart city cases addressed by each of the three regional innovation ecosystems. For each such priority area, comprehensive agendas for research and innovation are developed and the key research topics, methodologies, and activities that are undertaken to achieve relevant identified goals and objectives are outlined. Furthermore, the project proceeded with the initial definition of the methodology and the implementation plan the METACITIES project’s partners should follow to reach the objectives of the Joint Strategy from conceptualization to execution. This was performed together with the development and definition of a set of indicators and important milestones to track progress and measure the impact towards the implementation of the R&I strategy. All the above were described in D2.1 and summarisied in a Toolkit for Smart Cities https://metacities-hub.com/toolkit/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)
In the meantime, the basic Architecture and components specifications for Metacities Digital Twins and strategies/challenges for tranisition to Metaverse was provided in Deliverable D3.2. The ways that the Open Digital Twin framework (ODTF) has been inistantiated in the three clusters, their implementations diagrams and the Guidelines to facilitate the co-development of complementary future city domains along with their corresponding Digital Twins are described in D3.3. WP5 work on Business Models is an impactful collaborative work reported in D5.1 wehre the methodology and the variety of the ecosystems' business models are descried for the variouσ domains. Imlementation plans are delivered for all Actions and preparatοry work on Metacities EH and sustainability is preseted. WP4 pilots and proof of concepts are designed.
The project defined its impact maximization strategy and plan in terms of a./ dissemination and communication; b/ knowledge transfer and capacity building; c./ engagement, clustering and standardization. Measures for strengthening cross-border collaboration among the participating innovation ecosystems are being defined and orchestrated. These are documented in Deliverable D6.3.
The Metacities Excellence hub set the collaboration framework, investigated the local and regional R&I strategies with respect to the digital transformation of cities, related to the current state of Digital Twins (DTs) and Metaverse in SouthEast Europe (SEE), focusing on the key areas of development and the overall technological readiness of countries to embrace DTs and Metaverse technologies. To that respect various opportunities for collaboration among the Cyprus (CY), Bulgarian (BG), and Greek (GR) ecosystems within the context of the METACITIES project were investigated and outlined, with the goal of the creation of a joint framework for the successful adoption and implementation of Digital Twins and Metaverse technologies in SEE. To that respect and for the specific application area, goals, visions, and priority areas of each cluster are identified. The overlapping objectives among the different local strategies were harmonized and aligned towards the formation of common goals for the joint R&I strategy and the shared vision for the future of smart cities and smart regions was defined. This was performed with the definition of a Reference Model for Collaboration, based on the Quadruple Helix (QH) Approach, applied in the context of Smart Cities. This model is followed and properly adapted to the smart city cases addressed by each of the three regional innovation ecosystems. For each such priority area, comprehensive agendas for research and innovation are developed and the key research topics, methodologies, and activities that are undertaken to achieve relevant identified goals and objectives are outlined. Furthermore, the project proceeded with the initial definition of the methodology and the implementation plan the METACITIES project’s partners should follow to reach the objectives of the Joint Strategy from conceptualization to execution. This was performed together with the development and definition of a set of indicators and important milestones to track progress and measure the impact towards the implementation of the R&I strategy. All the above were described in D2.1 and summarisied in a Toolkit for Smart Cities https://metacities-hub.com/toolkit/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)
In the meantime, the basic Architecture and components specifications for Metacities Digital Twins and strategies/challenges for tranisition to Metaverse was provided in Deliverable D3.2. The ways that the Open Digital Twin framework (ODTF) has been inistantiated in the three clusters, their implementations diagrams and the Guidelines to facilitate the co-development of complementary future city domains along with their corresponding Digital Twins are described in D3.3. WP5 work on Business Models is an impactful collaborative work reported in D5.1 wehre the methodology and the variety of the ecosystems' business models are descried for the variouσ domains. Imlementation plans are delivered for all Actions and preparatοry work on Metacities EH and sustainability is preseted. WP4 pilots and proof of concepts are designed.
The project defined its impact maximization strategy and plan in terms of a./ dissemination and communication; b/ knowledge transfer and capacity building; c./ engagement, clustering and standardization. Measures for strengthening cross-border collaboration among the participating innovation ecosystems are being defined and orchestrated. These are documented in Deliverable D6.3.
The main technological advancements that take place in METACITIES relate to the ODTF framework and instantiation of city Digital Twins based on this co-created framework. METACITIES design pilots and demonstrators drawn from specific smart city sectors, jointly contributed by the three Southeastern Europe clusters. Business Models related to these smart city sector are being built and reported in variosu occasions ans scientific conferences. Prototypes will be executed to act as Proof of Concepts in each of the three selected smart city sectors by building instances of the proposed Digital Twins and Metaverses according to the Open Digital Twin Framework and using actual Information Communication Technology infrastructures contributed by the project’s partners.
• The Greek Pilot focuses on Smart Mobility in the region of Patras. Detailed mobility use cases are designed, and Digital Twins are being identified and described, representing characteristic mobility cases of the city of Patras.
• The Bulgarian Pilot deals with Smart buildings and Energy efficiency in the region of Burgas. Indicative use cases include potential uses of renewable sources of energy (PV), budget planning for energy usage and buildings renovation.
• The Cypriot Pilot deals with Smart Urban Planning. It will make use of interactive and immersive technologies to visualize and understand smart city data. By overlaying physical modelling, a 4D map will be used to forecast expected and predicted actions and behaviors of the environment and of other users, follow the history, and to check and control the function of solutions created for different problems in the city.
• The Greek Pilot focuses on Smart Mobility in the region of Patras. Detailed mobility use cases are designed, and Digital Twins are being identified and described, representing characteristic mobility cases of the city of Patras.
• The Bulgarian Pilot deals with Smart buildings and Energy efficiency in the region of Burgas. Indicative use cases include potential uses of renewable sources of energy (PV), budget planning for energy usage and buildings renovation.
• The Cypriot Pilot deals with Smart Urban Planning. It will make use of interactive and immersive technologies to visualize and understand smart city data. By overlaying physical modelling, a 4D map will be used to forecast expected and predicted actions and behaviors of the environment and of other users, follow the history, and to check and control the function of solutions created for different problems in the city.