TwinPolitics

01/01/2024 -

31/12/2029

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Germany, Nederlands, Norway, United States, Venezuela

2024 – 2025 BiodivTransform

Topics: governance, social sciences, sociology

TwinPolitics seeks to address concerns surrounding the socio-technical aspects of the creation of a digital twin of the ocean (DTO), which is leveraged by the European Commission.

Context

Digital twin technology holds significant promise in developing solutions to mitigate the damage caused by climate change and facilitating the transition to greener alternatives. The European Commission is leveraging this technology to create a digital twin of the ocean (DTO), a highly accurate digital model aimed at facilitating studies, improving decision-making, and providing essential ocean data. The ERC-funded TwinPolitics project seeks to address concerns surrounding the socio-technical aspects of DTOs and their use in national and international contexts. The project aims to investigate current challenges related to development, access, security, legal considerations, and necessary regulations. Additionally, it will develop a methodological approach to address these challenges and ensure the effective use of DTOs.

"Unlocking the Full Potential of Digital Twins for Sustainable Ocean Futures"

Main objectives

TwinPolitics is an ERC Consolidator Grant project running from July 2024 to June 2029, led by Prof. Dr. Alice Vadrot at the University of Vienna. The project investigates the development of digital twins as a geopolitical phenomenon that could permanently change the interface between science and politics, with a central focus on whether and how digital twins can contribute to a fairer organisation of multilateral negotiations in the future. To achieve this, the research team combines methods from ethnography and computational social science, applying them to digital ocean twins in the EU, China and the USA, and collecting ethnographic data from various policy levels and research sites to identify which features of digital twins promote inclusion, diversity and equity. The project tests the use of digital twins in three specific multilateral negotiation contexts: the International Seabed Authority, negotiations on a new UN plastics agreement, and negotiations on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity.

Main results

Since TwinPolitics only launched in July 2024, the project is still in its early stages and final results are not yet available. However, the team has already been active in fieldwork and dissemination: doctoral researchers conducted hybrid ethnographic fieldwork at the 3rd UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice in June 2025, systematically documenting the social and technical components surrounding the European Digital Twin of the Ocean, primarily at the European Digital Ocean Pavilion and selected side events. On the publication side, the team has produced peer-reviewed articles on topics such as biodiversity monitoring as data practices, the BBNJ clearing-house mechanism, and the politics of marine protected areas in multilateral negotiations. The project has also developed an Ocean Data Survey to gather broader stakeholder input on data use in ocean governance.

TwinPolitics

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