The first Wuertual Reality XR Meeting being held from April 11th to April 13th, 2023, in Würzburg offered a total of 126 participants from more than 41 German and European research institutes space and time for interdisciplinary networking as well as the opportunity to inform themselves about the latest XR research and to exchange ideas over the next two days. 

Both days were opened by a keynote giving new insights and impulses on “Enhancing Prosocial Behaviour in VR Through Embodiment” (Domna Banakou, Visiting Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at NYU Abu Dhabi) and “Presence, Agency, and VR-Based Social Stress Research Across the Lifespan” (Anna Felnhofer, Head of Pediatric Virtual Reality Laboratory at the Medical University Vienna).

The six symposia each consisting of five talks allowed for a focussed exchange on different topics in the context of XR: “Benefits and Challenges”, “Social Interaction”, “Applied XR”, “Fear and XR”, “Body and Gestures”, and “Brain and Cognition”.

One highlight of the event was the excursion to the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the Hubland Campus in Würzburg, where the groups of Prof. Marc Latoschik and Prof. Carolin Wienrich, as well as some guests, presented 25 exciting and inspirational XR applications which could be tried out by participants.

The second afternoon provided plenty of time to present and discuss the 34 posters. There was also a poster pitch. In this, 13 participants presented their research in short talks.

A big get-together was offered on the last evening at the rooftop bar Hoch3 in central Würzburg, where the participants could enjoy the sunset over Würzburg with a drink or two while further exchanging ideas about their research in a relaxed atmosphere. Later in the evening, the Poster Awards (1.: Eleni Kakavela, 2.: Marie Fiedler, 3.: Markus Winkler) and the Poster Pitch Awards (1.: Jasmin Walter, 2.: Johannes Rodrigues, 3.: Alexandros Kastrinogiannis) were announced. The scientific part of the evening was concluded with a small glimpse into the future. During the panel discussion “Quo vadis, Metaverse?” hosted by Ivo Käthner, our experts Marc Latoschik, Anna Felnhofer and Fabian Rücker debated the future of mixed reality. 

The last morning was spent participating in one of four different workshops; “Hands-on Hololens: An Introduction to Augmented Reality for Microsoft Hololens 2 with Unity 3D”, “Integration of VR into medical education”, “Insights into the Virtual Reality Scientific Toolkit (VRSTK)”, and “Excursion to the MAVEL Lab”.

Overall, the organizers of the congress received positive feedback and interest from the participants for a continuation of the XR meeting.