In the recent years, technologies that enhance or recreate real world environments are increasingly influencing the world of the production industry and business. In particular Virtual Reaity is expected to drive productivity that experts believe will bring companies significant ROIs. Just about any process that can be carried out in the physical world can be simulated in VR. The quantity and quality of VR solutions are constantly being improved and equipment and content creation costs continue to fall, so the momentum to explore VR’s role in business and education is likely to continue to grow. This will also have a strong direct impact not only on SMEs but also on HE business management and related studies.The EU is trying to prepare intensively for the challenges of digital teaching and learning and it therefore included this issue in a series of educational policies published, such as “European Strategy 2020” (Com2010), “New Skills Agenda for Europe” (Com2015/196), “A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe“ (Com2015/192), “Education Policies in Europe and Beyond” (EU 2017/29000) and the “European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators” (EU, DigCompEdu 2017, 52). However, Europe’s HEI are not able to fulfil the postulated requirements and they are poorly prepared to tackle the challenges of digital teaching and learning. The need for comprehensive and effective digital teaching and learning has been exemplified even more starkly by the impact of Corona on higher education. The problem is not the lack of infrastructure or software, but that HE managers and teachers have insufficient knowledge about the potential of VR and its application within their own faculty. HE managers and teachers themselves need in-depth education and training concerning what VR is about, what kind of VR skills and competence industry requires from graduates and how their own pedagogical approaches can be boosted by using VR applications.Therefore, the VRinSight project has implemented the following main activities and delivered the following outputs:•Implementation of the “VRinSight 3 in 1 survey” with VR developers, HE managers and teachers as well as with SME managers to get a clear picture about the state of the art in the field of VR developments as well as about frameworks, demands, needs and attitudes within HEIs and SMEs with regards to applying VR solutions.•Development of the “VRinSight Curriculum” about relevant key data and background information, pedagogic considerations and recommendations about applying VR at the HE level, global developments in the field and a compilation of a virtual learning materials library for HE managers and teachers with a specific focus on business management and related studies; the so-called “VRinSight Showcase” is a collection of 25 VR apps most suited to HE business management studies and an education setting.•Development of the “VRinSight Training Programme” enabling HE managers and teachers to acquire knowledge, skills and competences to apply VR in their own classes; also enabling SME managers (and their R&D and HRD experts) so both sides can learn together about the potential of VR and its possibilities for HE and industry. The heart of programme is the “VRinSight Classroom and VR Lecture Theater apps”, purpose-built VR environments specially created for the project allowing for virtual learning experience and live multi-user interaction in VR. The training programme and VR applications were tested by over 80 target group representatives in DE, CY, BE, FI and also AT and ES.•To raise general awareness of the project’s objectives and promote university business cooperation as key factor for successful capacity building, a “VRinSight Green Paper” was published. Its focused on the project’s objectives in general, with article contributions from key stakeholders in education and technology, presenting 24 of Europe’s best practice examples in VR HE teaching and digital education.•The project intensively promoted capacity building, especially at the university business cooperation level. Therefore, it set-up an informal network with project partners, associated partners and almost 200 other stakeholders representing all direct and indirect target groups (HE managers and teachers, SME managers, IT experts and VR developers, education policy makers and stakeholders at all levels etc.) •The overall aim of the project in the long run was to boost the use of VR applications within HE business management and related studies and to contribute to reaching the digitalization goals set by the authorities of the EU.Partners from DE, CY, AT, ES, BE and FI represent 4 HEIs and 3 business representatives (1 business association, 1 EU network and 1 VR developer); they are all embedded in relevant national and transnational networks, which will actively contribute to the project to ensure effective dissemination and exploitation of its outcomes.

Among many other things, the Covid-19 crisis has mercilessly exposed deficits in many areas – one of them is certainly the level of digitisation of Europe’s society in general and within education in particular. The lockdowns experienced by all kinds training institutes for months on end in most EU countries, have forced educators to offer training via the internet. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them had no idea how this works. In fact, we had to face a rather sad snapshot of Europe’s education systems: in most countries, there is very little tradition of e-learning, education providers have no or insufficient strategic digitalisation concepts and action plans, educators have little theoretical knowledge and methodological competence in the field, and, at least partially, the provision of basic infrastructure and devices (broadband internet, smartphones, tablets etc.) is still not universal.The EU has been aware of this situation for a long time, and has promoted a wide range of policy papers, such as: European Strategy 2020 (2010), New Skills Agenda for Europe (2015), Education Policies in Europe and Beyond (2017), the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (2017), Digital Education Action Plan (09/2020). And the IT literacy of learners is indeed constantly increasing - but the same cannot be said of the educational institutions that are responsible for this – much more, they and teachers often lag behind this trend.On the other hand, there is good news. Comprehensive progress has been made in the provision of digital learning solutions in recent years. Especially Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and the combination and further extension of both to Extended Reality (XR) have begun to enter the education markets. These technologies allow the simulation of almost any environment and process carried out in the physical world, whilst purchase costs have decreased enormously, the same way as the number of the so-called immersive learning apps has increased for all educational fields.But why do we see so few or nothing of them – and other e-learning solutions - in education? One reason is that educators know so little or nothing about these helpful digital learning opportunities because they never heard about them during their pedagogic studies, which again is due to HE lecturers themselves knowing little or nothing about them.To rapidly change this, XR4Ped fosters digitisation in HE in general and the promotion of XR-based immersive learning in particular. Main objectives, outcomes and impact are as follows: •Implementation of a qualitative guided interview survey within 20 best practice EU projects dealing with immersive learning in recent years to collect their experiences, the lessons learnt and the pedagogic approaches that boost XR learning.•Implementation of a quantitative online questionnaire survey within 200 European educators at all levels to obtain a clear picture about their awareness, experiences, demands and needs with regard to digital and immersive learning as well as their experiences and lessons learnt during the Covid-19 lockdowns.•Publication of a Green Paper with a detailed analyse of the two survey results, including clear derivations for the set-up and content of the XR4Ped Study Course as well as recommendations to EU policy makers on how to foster digital and immersive learning over the short and long terms. Thus, the experiences, needs and demands of the main target groups have direct impact on the customer orientation of the study course as well as on future policies concerning digital learning.•Development of the XR4Ped Study Course for lecturers/students of pedagogy containing 8 modules of immersive learning and 2 modules about how to create and implement webinars (overall 4 ECTS). Due to the importance of the topic and the transversal set-up of the course, it can easily be transferred to other HE fields and also be offered to educators in schools, VET, general adult or other education levels. The course has a hybrid set-up with a high number of online self-learning units. If needed, the course can quickly be turned into 100% online training. This ensures that the course can be offered to distance learners all over Europe.•Development of the XR4Ped Lecture Theatre, an immersive learning environment through which the whole course can be implemented.•The project will train 140 lecturers/students by means of an XR4Ped study course pilot; after that, we estimate 500 annual course participants, with another 2,000 educators at all levels will train themselves using the open source self-learning units. Familiarising a few 1,000 educators with digital and immersive learning over the next years will demonstrate direct impact upon Europe’s development towards being digital knowledge society.Therefore, the promoter has gathered experts from DE, AT, IE, BE and FI (+20 associated partners) with great expertise in immersive learning.

In the recent years, technologies that enhance or recreate real world environments are increasingly influencing the world of the production industry and business. With Virtual Reality/VR, Augmented Reality/AR and the combination of both Mixed Reality/MR it is possible to simulate almost any process carried out in the physical world – and in business ranging from customer services to marketing, HR and production. The global VR/AR/MR market is growing exponentially and will have enormous impact on many areas of economy. Unfortunately, Europe has started slowly in utilising VR/AR/MR business and learning environments and is lagging behind its competitors, such as the USA, China and South Korea. Particularly within manufacturing SMEs, one of Europe’s economic pillars, all studies document a severe lack of awareness, insufficient investment and inadequate education.VAM*Rs tackles this situation by• raising general awareness about the role VR/AR/MR already plays in manufacturing industry and how this will increase significantly in the future• getting an overview of the current state of the art of VR/AR/MR hardware and software available on the market and their usability for manufacturing SMEs• getting insight to the current situation within Europe’s SMEs with regard to VR/AR/MR, including the current level of application, attitudes towards future developments, possible investment barriers etc.• providing HEIs and SMEs with useful tools and background information so they can self-evaluate their current situation regarding VR/AR/MR • increasing quantity and quality of HEIs training and consulting (to both, HEI students and SMEs) in this field• providing HEIs’ teachers with appropriate standards, knowledge, skills and competences to successfully execute business cooperation and consulting work• creating the largest European VR/AR/MR platform (500+ members) where HEIs, SMEs, VR/AR/MR providers, business representatives, policy makers etc. can meet and exchange