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Welcome!

We are happy to announce that the 4th edition of the Spring School on Social XR, will take place at CWI (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) in Amsterdam from April 20-23 2026.

When imagining the future of media communication, we believe that it will be immersive. Thanks to its interactivity, enhanced realism and personalized viewing paradigm, Extended Reality (XR) is a key technology to empower and transform sectors as varied as cultural heritage, education, manufacturing and to provide a climate-neutral alternative to travelling in line with the ideads of the European Green Deal.

Social XR systems promise to overcome the limitations of current real-time teleconferencing systems, enabling a greater sense of immersion, increasing the sense of presence in the virtual world and fostering more natural interpersonal interactions through the integration of virtual and augmented reality systems, physiological sensing technologies and haptic interfaces.

Spring School 2025 group photo

The success of the Spring School goes beyond the curriculum; it's a testament to the seamless integration of insightful talks, engaging discussions, and well-curated social events. This blend created an environment where learning and networking seamlessly converged.

— Mohammed Faisal, University of Ottawa (participant 2024)

Spring School 2023 group photo
Spring School 2024 group photo

I have made a few journeys over the four years, attending European conferences. Despite the fantastic locations in Belgium, Sweden, and beyond, nothing will be more memorable than visiting the spring school on Social XR at CWI in Amsterdam.

— Bhagyabati Moharana, TUS (participant 2023)

Social XR technologies allow for shared experiences and interactions among remote users in real-time. However, several technological and research breakthroughs are still needed in order to make social XR widespread and accessible to the public. To enable realistic, immersive, and effective social XR experiences, a synergy is required between different research areas, such as computer graphics, networking and systems, signal processing, multimedia systems and social sciences and humanities.

Scope

The aim of this spring school is to learn about Social XR, as a new medium for communication and collaboration following an interdisciplinary approach, and welcoming students from technology, social sciences, and humanities. In particular, the school will target the following areas:

  • 3D Capturing and Modeling realistic avatars, and their behavior in the virtual world;
  • Coding, transmission and distribution of volumetric video content, and their optimisation for increasing the QoE;
  • Ethics by design, for the development of responsible Social XR experiences;
  • Rendering and interaction, including the development of new immersive and multi-sensory experiences;
  • Human factors and evaluation, including the assessment and evaluation of experiences and QoE modeling and prediction; and
  • Research context, providing insights of a research lab, DIS.

Target Audience

This school is intended for Ph.D students from different disciplines who are interested in learning more about the mechanics underlying immersive experiences, such as user-centered delivery systems and human perception, as well as volumetric content recording, rendering, and coding. Participants seeking a mixture of theoretical, empirical and practical insights from an interdisciplinary perspective are encouraged to apply.

We also welcome applications from master students and post-docs, as well as professionals and researchers (upon availability).

English is the language of instruction. Attending PhD students will be granted 5 ECTS points for their participation.

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