THE FUTURE OF ACADEMIC MEETINGS
LESSONS LEARNED FROM APPLYING IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES TO SCIENCE

© TFOAM
© TFOAM

Wed November 11, 2026 10:00 am CET

How can immersive worlds help build truly global academic communities?

As part of The Future of Meetings (TFOM), various groups and organizations have spent several years exploring how emerging technologies can transform academic meetings. This session takes participants on a walking tour through virtual worlds created for national and international astronomy conferences – showcasing different spaces, formats, and ways they have been used to bring scientific communities together.

Along the way, the team shares key lessons learned: what worked, what didn’t, and what they would do differently today. Together with the community, the session then explores what could come next for academic gatherings in immersive worlds.

Format

Presentation + World Hop

App

VRChat

Duration

45 min

Access via

Presenter

The Future of Meetings
A Global Community Reimagining Scientific Collaboration

The Future of Meetings (TFOM) is a global multidisciplinary community of practice that evolved out of the academic context, with particular origins in the field of astronomy. The vision of TFOM is a world that is increasingly accessible, inclusive and sustainable thanks to the benefits of advancing technology, both for the scientific community specifically and in wider society. We advocate that this vision can be realised by adapting approaches to how we meet, interact and collaborate, in order to prioritise better, more open ways of communicating.

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