Towards Nation­al Meta­verse Net­work

The meta­verse, or social vir­tu­al real­i­ty, is antic­i­pat­ed to be the next phase of inter­net devel­op­ment. In the meta­verse, 3D vir­tu­al spaces com­bine into an inter­ac­tive vir­tu­al uni­verse. Fin­land’s meta­verse indus­try is pro­ject­ed to reach €30 bil­lion by 2035, sup­port­ed by an ecosys­tem of 250 com­pa­nies. Fin­land aims to cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for inno­va­tion and busi­ness at the fore­front.

The city net­work assem­bled by the project forms a coun­ter­part to Busi­ness Fin­land’s busi­ness-ori­ent­ed Meta­verse in Action (MIA) net­work. The pro­jec­t’s goal is to iden­ti­fy how cities can bet­ter uti­lize meta­vers­es in devel­op­ment. The aim is also to join Euro­pean net­works, find best prac­tices, and pro­duce nation­al stan­dard­iza­tion for meta­verse devel­op­ment.

The project is imple­ment­ed by the City of Oulu in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, and the City of Espoo. Tam­pere is also involved in the coop­er­a­tion.

Objec­tives

1. To cre­ate and acti­vate a nation­al net­work on the meta­verse theme.
2. To con­nect to key Euro­pean net­works on the theme through the project.
3. The project iden­ti­fies use cas­es relat­ed to the meta­verse and pro­motes meta­verse-relat­ed pilot­ing in cities.
4. To help stan­dard­iza­tion relat­ed to nation­al meta­verse devel­op­ment.
5. The results obtained with the help of the project are also shared out­side the net­work (oth­er cities in Fin­land).
6. The project sup­ports the net­work mem­bers’ direct fund­ing appli­ca­tions from the Euro­pean Union’s finan­cial instru­ments.

The project is co-fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union.