[EASST-Eurograd] CfP Twinning European Cities @ RGS-IBG Annual Meeting, London 2026

[Sophia Knopf via Eurograd]

CfP Twinning European Cities @ RGS-IBG Annual Meeting, London 2026

 

Dear colleagues,

 

We would like to share this CfP on Twinning European Cities at the RGS-IBG Annual Meeting, London 2026 with you.

 

Title: Twinning European Cities RGS-IBG Annual Meeting, London 2026

Session Organisers: Otello Palmini, University of Bologna; Sophia Knopf, TU Munich

 

The development of ‘digital twins’ of objects and processes is emerging as a key practice in the current phase of the digital revolution. In the urban context, this trend has given rise to Urban Digital Twins (UDTs), aimed at representing, modelling and simulating entire cities. UDTs mark a new phase in discourses around smart cities, technology-driven urbanism, and AI-based technological solutionism.

 

In the European context, a distinct UDT agenda is emerging, often emphasizing novel opportunities for participation, transparency, and reliability in urban decision-making, envisioned to reduce the gap between technical expertise and citizenship. In practice, research has shown how UDTs emerge within specific local contexts and techno-political trajectories, being entangled with specific geographies of power relationships.

 

This call seeks to critically engage with these implications by gathering case studies of European UDTs through the prism of the conference’s theme of geographies of inequalities. Where and how do UDTs produce (in-)equalities? How do the topics of inequality and injustice look like through the lenses of the various different disciplines that have formed the UDT field? How can responsible European UDTs that actively take these aspects into account be designed in practice? We welcome both theories and practices related to UDTs; these examples should not only be considered from a technological point of view but be connected to the political, social, and ecological issues related to their development.

 

We welcome contributions on European UDTs highlighting the multiple aspects that contribute to their design and implementation (technology, governance, politics, ecology, city branding, urban economics, among others) and from different perspectives, including but not limited to:

• Urban Geography
• Science and Technology Studies
• Urban Planning
• Computational Social Sciences
• Philosophy of Technology
• Urban Sociology

 

If you are interested in contributing a paper, please send an abstract of up to 250 words to otell...@gmail.com and sophia...@tum.de by March 5th 2026.

 

References:

 

Amoore, L. (2025). Because the twin is not a copy: On the politics of digital twins. new media & society, 27(8), 4549-4564.

Ferré-Bigorra, J., Casals, M., & Gangolells, M. (2022). The adoption of urban digital twins. Cities, 131, 103905.

Kitchin, R., & Dawkins, O. (2025). Digital twins and deep maps. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 50(1), e12699.

Knopf, S., Macq, H., & Wentland, A. (2025). Urban futures in the mirror of technology? The politics of urban digital twins. new media & society, 27(8), 4385-4401.

Nochta, T., Wan, L., Schooling, J. M., & Parlikad, A. K. (2021). A socio-technical perspective on urban analytics: The case of city-scale digital twins. Journal of urban technology, 28(1-2), 263-287.