Virtual worlds panel

Laying the Groundwork for Concrete Action

The impact of citizens' recommendations on virtual worlds

The European Citizens’ Panel on Virtual Worlds provided a vision for the virtual environments people in Europe want. The 23 recommendations directly inspired the European Commission’s Strategy on Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds. This strategy is designed to guide the next technological transition while ensuring an open, secure, fair, and inclusive environment for citizens, businesses, and public administrations.

The recommendations have influenced key Commission initiatives in the strategy for Virtual Worlds, focusing on empowering people, building skills, and virtual public services. Upcoming initiatives include the Virtual Worlds Toolbox, Digital Identity Wallet, a study on virtual worlds standardisation, and research on their impact on health and well-being.

Here are some recent Commission initiatives:

Building Digital Skills: Three major Commission-funded projects in Digital Europe Work Programme 2024 to support skills in virtual world technologies (Recommendation 2).
Monitoring Risks & Opportunities: Europol’s Innovation Lab launched an observatory tracking virtual worlds' developments, focusing on law enforcement risks and opportunities (Recommendation 8).
Promoting Ethical XR Technologies: The EU-funded XR4Human project is developing guidance, a Code of Conduct, and educational tools to promote ethical, responsible XR technologies, supporting future EU-wide certification (Recommendations 3, 7, 22, 23).
Boosting Technological Sovereignty: 24 projects are funded to advance XR research and applications aligned with European values. The OPENVERSE project focuses on policy, standards, and inclusivity. A European Partnership on Virtual Worlds is also in preparation (Recommendations 22, 23).
Shaping Global Governance: Together with the Polish EU Council Presidency, the Commission is hosting a Global Multistakeholder High-Level Conference on Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds Governance to explore global models aligned with EU values (Recommendation 5).

23 recommendations for fair and people-centered virtual worlds in the EU

From 21 to 23 April, the Commission hosted the closing session of the European Citizens' Panel on Virtual Worlds in Brussels, which allowed citizens to make recommendations on the values and actions needed to create attractive and fair European virtual worlds. These recommendations will support the Commission's work on virtual worlds and the future of the internet.

After three weekends of deliberations, the citizens made 23 recommendations on expectations for the principles and actions to ensure that virtual worlds in the EU are fair and relevant to citizens. These recommendations are structured around eight values and principles: freedom of choice, sustainability, human-centeredness, health, education, safety and security, transparency and inclusion.

The full set of recommendations can be found in the documents section below.

Citizens panel on virtual worlds - 3 group photo

What vision, principles, and actions should guide the development of desirable and fair virtual worlds?

Many people believe that virtual worlds, also referred to as metaverses, might be a change comparable to the appearance of the internet and will transform the way we work and engage with each other in the future. In the last couple of years – and particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic – numerous public and private actors have been investing massively in these so-called “extended and augmented realities”, speeding up changes in our workplaces and habits.

Despite this increased attention, such a transformation will not happen suddenly. Virtual Worlds will take many years to develop into a high-quality, realistic digital environment, and there is no clear picture yet of what metaverses could and should become.

The EU and its Members States are committed to harness the potential of this transformation, understand its opportunities, but also the risks and challenges it poses, while safeguarding the rights of European citizens. The European Commission has therefore decided to convene a citizens’ panel to formulate recommendations for the development of virtual worlds.

Find out more in the information kit that is available in the document section below.

What was the outcome of the Panel?

The outcome of the panel is a set of guiding principles and actions for the development of virtual worlds in the EU, based on citizens' experiences, perceptions, and wishes for the future. It takes the form of recommendations addressed to the European Commission to feed into an initiative on the topic.

Timeline

The virtual worlds panel sessions took place between February and April 2023.

24-26 February 2023
Session 1 - Brussels
In the first session, participants built a shared vision of what desirable and fair virtual worlds should be like.
Please see the summary of the session in the Documents section below.
10-12 March 2023
Session 2 - online
In the second session, participants identified, discussed and prioritised values and principles that should guide the development of Virtual Worlds, and started exploring fields of actions to make this vision a reality.
The detailed agenda can be found in the Documents section below.
21-23 April 2023
Closing session - Brussels
The closing session submitted the conclusions of debates, together with the panels’ recommendations, to the European Commission. The final list of recommendations can be found in the documents section below.

The signature of the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles reflects our shared goal of a digital transformation that puts people first. The rights put forward in our Declaration are guaranteed for everybody in the EU, online as they are offline. And the digital principles enshrined in the Declaration will guide us in our work on all new initiatives.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission