The SPARROW platform represents a pioneering solution for enhancing societal resilience and crisis management in the face of digital breakdowns. Employing a modular architecture encompassing data integration, simulation modeling, and a collaborative platform, SPARROW orchestrates large datasets and expert insights to create a dynamic digital twin of a city. This digital twin, visualized in 3D, becomes a robust testing ground for assessing vulnerabilities and preparing for diverse crisis scenarios. Through a participatory approach involving citizens, local authorities, and first responders, the platform fosters communication during breakdowns and bolsters preparedness against digital threats. SPARROW's innovative tools, including the Emergency Communication Mobile App (ECOMAPP), City Digital Twin (CITWIN), and the Dynamic Critical Asset Management Recommendation Engine (DYCAMARE), are co-designed with stakeholders to ensure user-friendly, effective, and ethically sound functionalities. The platform's impact extends across various sectors, from critical infrastructure managers optimizing maintenance to emergency responders utilizing a mobile 5G network (EMER-5G) for prioritized communication (ECOPRIM). In alignment with EU policies, SPARROW aims to enhance crisis communication, bridge gaps in digital breakdown preparedness, and contribute to a secure and resilient European way of life.

PoliVisu is a Research and Innovation project designed to evolve the traditional public policy making cycle using big data. The aim is to enhance an open set of digital tools to leverage data to help public sector decision-making become more democratic by (a) experimenting with different policy options through impact visualisation and (b) using the resulting visualisations to engage and harness the collective intelligence of policy stakeholders for collaborative solution development. Working with three cities to address societal problems linked to smart mobility and urban planning, the intention is to enable public administrations to respond to urban challenges by enriching the policy making process with opportunities for policy experimentation at three different steps of the policy cycle (policy design, policy implementation, and policy evaluation). Experimentation of policy options will enable the cities to tackle complex, systemic policy problems that require innovative thinking to develop transformative solutions.

DUET is an Innovation project designed to leverage the advanced capabilities of cloud and high-performance computing (HPC) to evolve the traditional public policy making cycle using large open data sources. The aim is to help public sector decision-making become more democratic and effective, both in the short and long term, through the development and use of Digital Twins for policy impact exploration and experimentation in entire cities and regions. These digital replicas of a cities system will (a) enhance day-to-day city management by helping city managers react quickly to real-time events through rapid experimentation of different decision impacts, and (b) ensure longer term policy decisions are more effective and trusted by enabling city managers from different units, to explore and discuss with citizens and businesses city issues in a visual, easy-to-digest way via a common view. Thanks to the 3D interface public administrations will, for the first time, more easily harness the collective intelligence of ALL policy stakeholders to tackle complex, systemic policy problems that require innovative thinking from multi-sectors to develop transformative solutions. Developed and tested in cities and Regions at different points in their digital transformation journeys – Flanders Region, Belgium, the City of Athens, Greece and City of Pilsen, Czech Republic – DUET will create the concept of Policy-Ready-Data-as-a-Service and ensure all cities across Europe will be able to create their own their own Digital Twins that address ethical considerations around data use whilst also complying with Europe’s stringent privacy and security regulations.

CLIMABOROUGH is an Innovation project designed to field test the ClimHub, Climate Sandbox and Climate Service concepts within 12 European Cities engaged in their ecological and digital transition. The project aims to enhance traditional urban and spatial planning approaches through data and knowledge based decision making (including a possible new role for GIS - Geographic Information Systems), including climate services co-production for transitions, cross-city and cross-country pilot co-creation as well as the tactical use of public procurement of innovative solutions. The goal is not just to enhance an open set of tools leveraging climate transition in cities, but also to boost the exchange of experimental good practices, experiences and lessons learnt in this field, to help cities meet climate neutrality by 2050. This will be achieved by the following expected results: (A) building ClimHubs of Cities and solution providers to work on experimentations in real conditions, (B) harnessing the collective intelligence of local stakeholders for collaborative solution development, (C) defining Climate Services as a model strategy to use data and visualisation tools for climate transition, (D) field testing the Climate Sandbox concept as a way to prioritise and facilitate transformation of successfully deployed prototypes into established solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation in cities, and (E) monitoring and assessing the progress in achieving those goals and in implementing a climate neutrality planning scheme. Based on the lessons learnt and successful concept of the H2020 Designscapes CSA, CLIMABOROUGH has the ambition to bridge the gap between design and implementation of urban innovations, particularly in the domain of climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Smart cities have frontline responsibility to ensure a secure and safe physical and digital ecosystem promoting cohesive and sustainable urban development for the well being of EU citizens. S4AllCities integrates advanced technological and organizational solutions in a market oriented unified Cyber – Physical Security Management framework, aiming at raising the resilience of cities’ infrastructures, services, ICT systems, IoT and fostering intelligence and information sharing among city’s security stakeholders. Three pilot cases, with the engagement of a total of 5 cities in 4 countries (Spain, Romania, Czech Republic, Greece), enable S4ALLCITIES System of Systems to deploy and validate its intelligent components and functionalities on actual environment, ensuring the delivery of solutions and services in line with smart cities emerging requirements, focused on: risk-based open smart spaces security management; cyber security shielding; suspicious activity and behaviour tracking; identification of unattended objects; real-time estimation of cyber-physical risks in multiple locations and measures activation for effective crisis management. S4ALLCities smart components, integrated within 3 Digital Twin Systems, will demonstrate their technological advances in tackling terrorist attacks with high risk for mass casualties, within the complex environment of open crowded spaces. The multidisciplinary consortium (9 EU countries) will exploit project’s innovative technological systems in the global market providing a cost efficient and market ready integrated solution. S4ALLCities exploitation phase will promote good practices and guidance material across EU cities so as to enhance capacity building of involved stakeholders, reduce the vulnerabilities of public spaces, mitigate the consequences of adversary attacks, raise public awareness and strike a balance between improving security and preserving the open nature of public spaces as well as citizens’ sense of freedom.