Virtual worlds test beds
closedExpected Outcome: • Contributing to European digital sovereignty and open strategic autonomy in the domain of virtual worlds; • Contributing to development of innovative and interoperable virtual worlds solutions; • Contributing to the creation and promotion of EU regulatory sandboxes for virtual worlds. Objective: 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 testbeds will seek to maximise the uptake of virtual worlds solutions in industrial and societal applications and boost competitiveness of the sectors they are applied. Scope: For this action, support to two world-class sectorial testbeds 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 and other cultural experiences, public administration or healthcare). Each testbed 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. The area should be clearly identified within the proposal. The test beds will provide all necessary expertise and infrastructure for the design and implementation of the testing methodologies, combining physical world and virtual worlds facilities.
Eligibility & conditions
"> Conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in section 5 of the call document . Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in section 6 of the call document . 3. Other Eligible Conditions described in section 6 of the call document . 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in section 7 of the call document . 5a. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes described section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual . 5b. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds described in section 9 of the call document . 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in section 4 of the call document . 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants described in section 10 of the call document . Call document and annexes: Call document Application form templates Standard application form (DEP) — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System Ownership control declaration Model Grant Agreements (MGA) DEP MGA   Additional documents: DEP Work Programmes DEP Regulation 2021/964 EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509 Guidance Classification on information in DIGITAL projects Guidelines on How to Complete Your Ethics Self-Assessment Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement
- Deadline
- 03 Mar 2026
- Open date
- 04 Nov 2025
- Funding
- — – —
- TRL
- —
- Eligible entities
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- Eligible countries
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- Topics
- DIGITAL-2026-AI-09-VIRTUAL-TESTBEDS-STEP, DIGITAL-2026-AI-09, Artificial intelligence, Design, implementation, and operation of data management systems that include security and privacy functions, Interoperability, Virtual Reality