Deadline Date: March 03, 2026
The European Commission is advancing its digital innovation agenda by supporting the creation of virtual worlds test beds that drive productivity, interoperability, and real-world application of immersive technologies.
Contributing to European digital sovereignty and open strategic autonomy in the domain of virtual worlds. Contributing to the development of innovative and interoperable virtual worlds solutions. Contributing to the creation and promotion of EU regulatory sandboxes for virtual worlds.
The main objective is to increase productivity and innovation capacity through state-of-the-art virtual worlds technologies. The Virtual Worlds test beds will support testing, experimentation, and integration of Virtual Worlds, immersive, and extended reality technologies in specific sectors, targeting both industrial and societal applications. The virtual worlds test beds will focus on testing and integrating mature technologies and solutions that have already been tested in the labs with the objective to be validated in real-world environments. They will also cover the aspects of interoperability and transferability between Virtual Worlds. The Virtual Worlds test beds will seek to maximise the uptake of virtual worlds solutions in industrial and societal applications and boost competitiveness of the sectors they are applied.
The total funding available for this initiative amounts to EUR 17,000,000, supporting the establishment and operation of these advanced virtual world testing environments across Europe. For this action, support to two world-class sectorial test beds through two projects is envisaged: one for industrial applications such as manufacturing, construction, or industrial design, and one for societal applications such as education and training, cultural heritage, public administration, or healthcare. Each test bed should create a network of facilities with critical mass across at least three different Member States or associated countries.
Proposals are expected to focus on either industrial or societal applications, and the chosen area should be clearly identified within the proposal. The test beds will provide all necessary expertise and infrastructure for the design and implementation of testing methodologies, combining both physical and virtual world facilities to ensure comprehensive evaluation and innovation.
Eligible participants must be legal entities, either public or private bodies, established in one of the eligible countries. These include EU Member States, including overseas countries and territories (OCTs), as well as non-EU countries (except for topics with restrictions), such as listed EEA countries and countries associated with the Digital Europe Programme. Beneficiaries and affiliated entities are required to register in the Participant Register before submitting their proposals and will need to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For validation purposes, applicants must upload documents demonstrating their legal status and origin.
For more information, visit European Commission.
