1. Our recent mapping exercise identified 20 transnational city networks (TCNs) active on the twin transition (energy and/or digital) and operating in the European Union territory. Of these, nine operate in both areas of the twin transition, while 11 operate only on the energy side of it. While this reflects the broader dominance of environmental issues as a policy area among city networks, it nonetheless points to a meaningful pattern: cities and their networks appear to engage with digitalization primarily in relation to, and perhaps as an instrument of, the green transition, rather than as a standalone agenda.
2. The geographic analysis of the sample reveals that, while EU member states dominate as expected, most networks extend well beyond European borders. Non-European countries such as Turkey, Canada, and Brazil feature prominently. At the city level, participation in twin transition networks is dominated by larger and/or capital cities with the resources and capacity to engage in multiple organizations simultaneously. These “super-insiders” can leverage network membership for international visibility, policy leadership, and access to supranational actors like the EU and UN. Their presence across several overlapping networks also gives them strategic flexibility, allowing them to select and use networks depending on their goals.
3. Twin transition transnational city networks broadly mirror the wider population of city networks in their core goals: advocacy, interest representation, knowledge sharing, and project development. The configuration of city networks is only partly shaped by a functional logic: the landscape is marked by significant overlap and even duplication in terms of goals, membership, and activities across networks. While some cooperation exists to generate synergies, competition within the system is also present, pointing to a fragmented and at times inefficient ecosystem rather than a coherently organized one.
4. Many twin transition city networks maintain close ties with the EU, both as participants in the policy process and, more concretely, as recipients of EU funding. For smaller networks, this financial relationship risks creating dependence on the EU. More broadly, transnational city networks appear structurally reliant on intergovernmental institutions, suggesting they cannot operate effectively in isolation from state-based governance frameworks.
5. Collaboration with civil society is common and often structural (12 of the 20 networks include non-territorial members), with project-based collaboration also widespread, typically for local or technical expertise. Citizen participation is widely acknowledged as important among networks practitioners in principle, but meaningful implementation remains a persistent challenge.
