At CORTEX2, we are proud to have participated in EuroXR 2025, held from 3-5 September 2025 in Winterthur, Switzerland, at the ZHAW School of Management and Law. This year’s EuroXR marked a special milestone for us, as it served as the stage for our final event, organised in close collaboration with our sister project, SPIRIT. Together, we co-hosted a dedicated track titled: “Extended Collaborative Telepresence – How CORTEX² and SPIRIT are Advancing Innovation in XR.”
Organised by the European Association for eXtended Reality(EuroXR) and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences(ZHAW), EuroXR 2025 brought together researchers, industry experts, and innovators in Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality from Europe and beyond.
The conference featured keynote speeches, plenary sessions, scientific and application tracks, as well as poster and demonstration sessions. Once again, it reaffirmed its status as a premier gathering for the extended reality (XR) community.
For us at CORTEX2, returning to EuroXR for the second year in a row, this edition was particularly meaningful. It allowed us to share the main achievements from three years of hard work, celebrate the outcomes of our funded projects, and showcase the impact of European innovation in XR.
“For us at CORTEX2, returning to EuroXR was particularly meaningful — it allowed us to share the main achievements from three years of hard work, celebrate the outcomes of our funded projects, and showcase the impact of European innovation in XR.”
Celebrating our XR innovators
One of the highlights of the event was the active participation of our XR innovators, the winners of our Open Calls 1 and 2, who travelled from across Europe to present the results of their projects.
“One of the highlights of EuroXR 2025 was the active participation of our XR innovators, who travelled from across Europe to present their solutions and showcase real-world applications.”
Through fast-track pitches, they introduced their solutions in concise presentations, and in poster and demo sessions, they showcased research outcomes, prototypes and real-world applications across different themes, such as: “XR Technology and Infrastructure”, “Enhancement of XR Objects, Representations and Experiences”, “XR Training in/for the Manufacturing Domain / Robot Tele-Operation”, and “Health, Entertainment and Social XR Applications”.
These sessions offered a unique opportunity to highlight the impact of our 30 funded projects, developed through the CORTEX2 Support Programme, and to give visibility to their results within the XR community. In total, over 50 funded initiatives from the CORTEX2 and SPIRIT cascade funding programmes were represented.
Spotlight on our pilots
Another key moment was the presentation of our three pilots, focused on AR Industrial Remote Cooperation, VR Remote Technical Training, and VR Business Meetings, to an audience of approximately 200 experts.
These pilots have played a crucial role in demonstrating the integration of the CORTEX2 framework in real-world contexts, while assessing not only the technical performance but also the human, social, and societal impact of XR-based collaboration.
“Our pilots demonstrated the integration of the CORTEX2 framework in real-world contexts, assessing not only technical performance but also human, social, and societal impact.”
Discussing the future of XR
Our coordinator, Alain Pagani, Principal Researcher of Computer Vision at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), took part in an inspiring session on the future of XR, with leading voices from other European-funded projects.
The panel was moderated by Krzysztof Walczak, from the Poznan University of Economics and Business, and featured valuable insights from Peter Van Daele (SPIRIT project & Ghent University), Vincenzo Croce (SUN project), Muhammad Zeshan Afzal (LUMINOUS project & DFKI), Arta Ertekin (OPENVERSE project & Martel Innovate), Didier Stricker (SHARESPACE project & DFKI), and Anastasia Sergeeva (THEIA-XR project & University of Luxembourg).
Together, they explored key questions on the opportunities and challenges ahead for XR: How will advances in AI shape the future of XR experiences and applications? What could help XR move from niche use to broader acceptance in society and industry? How should Europe position itself in the global XR landscape?
Strengthening collaboration with SPIRIT
The success of our final event was made possible through our close partnership with the SPIRIT project. Together, we organised and co-hosted our track, which marked the final event for both our projects.
“Together with SPIRIT, we showed the power of EU-funded projects working together to amplify their impact and scale their results.”
This collaboration demonstrates the power of EU-funded projects working together to amplify their impact and scale their results, just as we do in our Beyond XR cluster. This initiative, now bringing together more than 14 European projects, received a special mention from Anne Bajart, Deputy Head of Unit at DG CONNECT of the European Commission. In her keynote speech, she highlighted it as a great example of a community-driven initiative and expressed her hope for its continued activity and future success.
This joint achievement would not have been possible without the outstanding work of our CORTEX2 innovators, who presented their groundbreaking results; the dedication of our CORTEX2 team over the past three years, as well as the commitment of our pilots team, and the mentors in our Support Programme; and the EuroXR Association for providing such an excellent platform to bring the XR community together.
“This joint achievement would not have been possible without the outstanding work of our innovators, the dedication of our team, and the collaboration fostered through EuroXR.”
Together, we have shown the strength of European collaboration in shaping the future of XR!
Discover more about the impact of our work, the results of our funded projects, and how we are contributing to the continued evolution of XR technologies in Europe:
Follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and X
Subscribe to our newsletter
