TWINE (Twin-based Web Interoperable Network for Engagement) is a Horizon Europe project developing and testing an open, federated approach to digital twins, virtual worlds and Web 4.0 civic services. Today, many of these services remain fragmented, difficult to reuse and hard to scale across cities and providers. TWINE brings together open-source building blocks, data spaces, digital identity and interoperability mechanisms to demonstrate how these services can work across different urban contexts. The project is coordinated by imec.
Project information
| • Project period: September 2026 – August 2029 • Funding programme / call: Horizon Europe, HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-HUMAN-16 (Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds) • Project coordinator: imec • Grant number: 101298722 • Project website: not yet available |
The challenge
Digital twins, virtual worlds and other immersive services are increasingly used by European cities, but many remain isolated in city-specific or provider-specific environments. Differences in platforms, identity systems, data models and interfaces make it difficult to connect or reuse services across organisational and geographic boundaries.
This fragmentation limits the ability of cities, public administrations and SMEs to scale successful solutions beyond individual pilots. It also means that similar technical and governance challenges often need to be solved repeatedly when services are transferred to a new city or platform.
Europe's Web 4.0 agenda calls for more open, interoperable and human-centred digital environments. TWINE contributes to this by combining open standards, reusable building blocks and federated approaches that support portability, trust, data sovereignty and cross-provider interaction.
Project objective
TWINE will design, integrate and validate a federation-ready Web 4.0 architecture that supports interoperable, reusable and trustworthy digital twin and virtual world services across European cities.
The project will pursue this through four connected strands:
• A federation-ready Web 4.0 reference architecture based on open standards and reusable open-source building blocks
• Connectors, interoperability mechanisms and a new Minimum Interoperability Mechanism (MIM) for virtual world civic services
• Cross-city pilots in Rotterdam, Tampere and Flanders to test federation, identity continuity, data exchange and cross-provider user interaction
• Governance, replication, exploitation and sustainability measures to support adoption beyond the project
Our role in the project
TWINE is coordinated by imec-SMIT, VUB. The team also leads and contributes to requirements and use-case work, co-creation, validation, and research on governance, trust and sustainable adoption.
Concretely, the imec-SMIT, VUB team will:
• Coordinate project management, quality assurance, risk management, and ethics and data-management follow-up together with the consortium
• Lead requirements analysis and use-case mapping, helping translate pilot needs into reusable system capabilities
• Lead co-creation and validation activities addressing usability, accessibility, inclusiveness, trust and policy relevance
• Conduct research on governance, open-source business and sustainability models, and support evidence-based recommendations for long-term uptake
Expected results and impact
The project is expected to produce:
• A federation-ready Web 4.0 architecture and reusable open-source components
• A new Minimum Interoperability Mechanism (MIM) for virtual world civic services, aligned with MIMs Plus
• Validated cross-city federation across the Rotterdam, Tampere and Flanders pilots
• Replication, governance, policy and sustainability guidance to support wider uptake
In the longer term, TWINE aims to make it easier for European cities and providers to reuse and connect digital twin and virtual world services across different platforms and local contexts, while supporting openness, interoperability, trust and digital sovereignty.
Partners and funding
TWINE is coordinated by imec and funded under Horizon Europe's Cluster 4 call on Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds (HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-HUMAN-16). The project runs for 36 months from September 2026 to August 2029. The consortium brings together partners from Belgium, Finland, Italy and the Netherlands and validates its approach through pilots in Rotterdam, Tampere and Flanders.
Contact
Do you have questions about the project? Please contact Bram Lievens.
