European Citizen Panel about the Metaverse
13 March 2023, by HCI-UHH
As announced by President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech, the European Commission (EC) has introduced Citizen Panels as a novel way of including citizen participation in the preparation of EC policy proposals.
The second citizen panel of the EC is focussed on the Metaverse. It is intended to feed into and accompany the EC's actions to empower European citizens in virtual worlds, and and take into account their aspirations and expectations of how these worlds should be developed in order to be fair, trustworthy and designed for real humans.
Prof. Dr. Frank Steinicke participated as expert member on the Knowledge Committee that help to identify the knowledge citizens need to inform their deliberations and form the basis for their recommendations for actions, by which the European Union can accompany the development of a trustworthy, fair and open metaverse and virtual worlds.
The Citizen Panel is organised in three blocks with 150 participants from 27 EU countries plus Ukraine, and is held partly remotely and partly in presence in Brüssel.