Registration for the 4th Destination Earth (DestinE) User eXchange on 25 and 26 June is open until 18 June. This edition will take place during ESA’s Living Planet Symposium (LPS) in Vienna.
Following the successful User eXchanges in Frascati, Bonn and Darmstadt, this event series continues to grow as a key platform for users, partners and stakeholders to connect, share experiences, and explore the latest developments in the DestinE ecosystem. This year’s User eXchange is organised by ESA and will be held during the LPS at the Austria Center Vienna on 25 and 26 June 2025.
Held about once per year, the User eXchange series brings together participants from across sectors, including scientists, developers, service providers, and policymakers, offering them the chance to engage with each other and the initiative’s three implementing entities: ECMWF, ESA and EUMETSAT as well as representatives from the European Commission’s DG CNECT, leading this initiative.
Please note: Remote participation is also possible. Participants who wish to attend the User eXchange on-site must also register separately for the LPS. As the online event registration for the LPS is closed already, on-site attendees will need to complete walk-in registration upon arrival in Vienna.
User engagement, real life applications, and DestinE’s digital twins in the spotlight
The two-day programme will offer visionary talks, panel discussions, technical sessions, and poster presentations, highlighting user engagement and practical applications.
On the opening day key personnel from the three implementing entities ECMWF, ESA and EUMETSAT will set the scene with an overview of key achievements and updates. Irina Sandu, Director for Destination Earth at ECMWF, will present the latest updates on the Digital Twins and the Digital Twin Engine.
Two dedicated sessions will focus on DestinE’s Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT) and Weather-Induced Extremes Digital Twin (Extremes DT), implemented by ECMWF and many partners across Europe.
Benoît Vannière (ECMWF) will moderate a session on the Extremes DT, including a discussion on opportunities and next steps. Researchers and partners working on the Extremes DT will give stock and provide examples on how users and different sectors will benefit from this digital twin.
In another session led by Sebastian Milinski (ECMWF), researchers involved in the Climate DT will present it’s the current status and roadmap. The session includes real-world use cases such as support for energy planning, droughts and floods planning, urban heat management and how to use story-line simulations to better understand climate risks.
On the second day, the 4th User eXchange will explore how user feedback is shaping DestinE, highlighting ongoing improvements to usability, accessibility, and functionality of the DestinE platform.
Highlights include a session that will focus on ‘How to access DestinE data’ featuring a presentation from Tiago Quintino, Head of Development at ECMWF on the polytope service, as well as interventions on ‘What’s coming for users’, including Jörn Hoffmann, Application Partnerships Lead at ECMWF, and representatives from EUMETSAT, ESA and the European Commission.
More DestinE highlights during the Living Planet Symposium
In addition to the User eXchange, the broader LPS programme features four Digital Twin-focused sessions. Jörn Hoffmann is co-convening a sessions together with convenors from ESA. The sessions cover collaborative innovation for building digital twins of the Earth system, technological innovation, synergies between ESA’s DTE programme and DestinE, and Earth observation for developing digital twin components.
You can find the full User eXchange programme here and the programme for the LPS here.
Destination Earth is a European Union funded initiative launched in 2022, with the aim to build a digital replica of the Earth system by 2030. The initiative is being jointly implemented by three entrusted entities: the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) responsible for the creation of the first two ‘digital twins’ and the ‘Digital Twin Engine’, the European Space Agency (ESA) responsible for building the ‘Core Service Platform’, and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), responsible for the creation of the ‘Data Lake’.
We acknowledge the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking for awarding this project strategic access to the EuroHPC supercomputers LUMI, hosted by CSC (Finland) and the LUMI consortium, Marenostrum5, hosted by BSC (Spain) Leonardo, hosted by Cineca (Italy) and MeluXina, hosted by LuxProvide (Luxembourg) through a EuroHPC Special Access call.
More information about Destination Earth is on the Destination Earth website and the EU Commission website.
For more information about ECMWF’s role visit ecmwf.int/DestinE
For any questions related to the role of ECMWF in Destination Earth, please use the following email links: