Sectoral digital skills academies: Virtual Worlds Skills Academy

Funded projects will deliver: comprehensive, multi-level academic curricula and modular training programmes for diverse target groups; piloted short-term, sector-specific training courses; sustainable partnerships and collaboration frameworks among academia, industry and research institutions to facilitate large-scale European roll-out; practical educational initiatives (internships, mentorships, bootcamps, career days); inclusive support schemes for women, disadvantaged youth and persons with disabilities; “teach-the-teacher” training for educators; targeted communication and awareness-raising campaigns; a centralized landing page on the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform; regular impact reports based on KPI assessments with actionable policy and investment recommendations; and any additional deliverables tailored to each academy’s focus.

Projects must: cover all key technological building blocks of virtual worlds—extended reality, blockchain, AI, data, edge computing, high-performance computing, 3D graphics, interactive media, content creation, computer vision, modelling and industrial applications (digital twins), digital identity, data privacy and big data—as well as related creative and cross-disciplinary areas (law, ethics, design, etc.); design and deliver sector-specialist training programmes for industries such as automotive, healthcare, education and cultural/creative sectors to enable deployment of virtual worlds; and develop basic-awareness training modules for citizens to raise understanding of virtual-worlds technologies, opportunities and risks in daily life.