A new series of studies provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of virtual worlds since the adoption of the European Commission's 2023 Strategy on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds, analysing applications, industrial dynamics, skills gaps, and Europe’s global position.
Next generation virtual worlds are a multi-disciplinary paradigm intertwining virtual, digital and physical realities into highly immersive experiences.
These experiences incorporate varying degrees of virtual and real information, which users can access with different levels of immersiveness and interaction.
Virtual worlds will bring ground-breaking technical, economic and societal shifts. However, their future depends on key technological drivers, industry stakeholders, and adopters, which makes predictions challenging.
A dedicated JRC's Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) is working to understand next generation virtual worlds, their impact on society from a multidisciplinary view and the policy challenges they will bring. It particularly looks at their influence on
- individuals (digital twins, socialisation)
- high-stake sectors (health, education, labour)
- businesses (new services, business models)
- digital contents (NFTs)
- technology (human-virtual world interaction, blockchain, AI)
- social schemes (democracy, geo-politics, role of public sector)
Why research next generation virtual worlds?
Next generation virtual worlds are only now technically, economically and socially feasible thanks to key enablers that have rapidly evolved in very recent years
- high technology readiness level of key enabling technologies
- novel and more immersive human-machine interfaces
- availability of large and highly performant computing and data storage infrastructures
- an unprecedentedly vast community of highly engaged adopters
- interest and strong investment from the public sector and governments
In this context, it has become indispensable that policymakers and scientists can gain awareness from the virtual world’s dynamics in order to make informed decisions.
The JRC's work on this area provides valuable insights to EU's regulation on technologies that are likely to be key drivers of next generation virtual worlds through the AI Act, Digital Service Act and Digital Market Act, but also the Data Act and the Data Governance Act amongst other policy initiatives.
Related publications
Analysis of skills supply, demand and contextual aspects of the virtual worlds industry in the EU
Assessment template covering virtual worlds applications’ purpose, functionality, development, use and outcomes - applied to 22 use cases
A comprehensive analysis of the global and EU virtual worlds ecosystem
On 8 November 2023, we presented the work of the JRC on this area, together with experts and partners who discussed the implications and challenges of researching on virtual worlds.
