Heritage digital twins and the transformation of museum curation practices

Abstract

Museums are undergoing digital transformation with digital twin technology emerging as a novel approach to cultural heritage preservation and presentation. Digital twins represent dynamic digital replicas of physical assets and promise to enhance how curators manage collections, design exhibitions and engage audiences. This study synthesises recent peer-reviewed case studies between 2015-2025 to understand how heritage digital twins are transforming museum curation practices, adopting a systematic literature review and meta-synthesis design over 30 scholarly sources were analysed including conceptual frameworks and empirical case studies from global contexts. Study findings found that heritage digital twins enable curators to virtually preserve and monitor artifacts in real-time, prototype exhibitions in immersive environments and extend visitor access through virtual museums. Curators’ roles are broadening to include digital content management and data-driven decision-making supported by new interdisciplinary collaborations. In experimental studies, digital twin-based virtual exhibitions improved visitor engagement and learning outcomes especially with significant gains in knowledge and motivation when combined with gamified or immersive (VR/AR) features. Heritage digital twins are catalysing a paradigm shift in curation from static, object-centred practices to dynamic, participatory and data-informed approaches although challenges remain in technology integration and skills training. This study highlights theoretical and practical implications for adopting digital twin frameworks in museums and identifies future research needs in areas of evaluation metrics and curator training models.