AGORA

First plenary meeting of AGORA

r.lianou — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 08:34:32 +0000

First physical meeting of AGORA took place on January 12, 2024, and was hosted in Nicosia, Cyprus, by the University of Nicosia. The project partners had the opportunity to present their progress, coordinate their actions and make plans for the upcoming openings of the Doctoral Candidate positions. AGORA will support 17 DCs in total on a multitude of topics on Metaverses focusing mainly on their technological, societal, and business values.

The project’s goal is to develop the critical research and talent base that current Metaverses challenges require, through a robust training program that will engage DCs into the fundamental shifts that the Metaverse brings and prepare them for opportunities while instilling them with the principles of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI).

AGORA’s approach is to train the Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) not only to understand Metaverse’s infrastructure but also to understand and oscillate between the different levels of Metaverse’s business and societal value, paving in this way a more integrated understanding of this disruptive ecosystem. Combining theoretical and hands-on industrial research and transferable skills training will enable researchers to target high-quality publication outlets and to become creative and autonomous so that they can exploit and commercialize research results and become competitive in the global arena.

The European research project AGORA trains the next generation of researchers on Metaverse

admin — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 14:53:55 +0000

AGORA is an EU-funded project under the MSCA Doctoral Networks of the Marie Curie-Skłodowska Actions that aims to train next generation researchers on the technology, social, and business values of Metaverses. The objective of the project is to develop the critical research and talent base that current Metaverses challenges require, through a rigorous and robust training programme, that will engage Doctoral Candidates (DCs) into the fundamental shifts that the Metaverse brings and prepare them for business, innovation and technological opportunities, while instilling them with the principles of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI).

Metaverses refer to immersive virtual worlds in which people, places and things of the physical world are instantiated by their digital representations. The maturity of technologies, including extended reality, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, blockchain, non-fungible investments of tech giants (e.g., Meta, Microsoft), are currently driving the wider use of Metaverses. As Metaverses operate in real-time, their wide adoption is expected to create digital public spaces for interaction (similar to ancient Greek agoras) in which online interactions are intensified and blended with the physical world as never before. It is thus expected that Metaverses will generate value by releasing a new spectrum of opportunities at different pillars (e.g. societal, business, and technological).

AGORA’s research aim is two-fold: (a) to provide a holistic framework for understanding Metaverses’ business and societal value, taking into account the interplay of implications across the three pillars; and (b) to identify pathways for maximising value creation within each pillar, while minimising the negative impacts across the other two.

AGORA responds to the lack of doctoral programs which go beyond the technical understanding of Metaverses but also investigate their business and social value while unpacking and addressing potential unintended consequences. Through a rigorous and robust research and training programme, AGORA aims to develop a critical research and talent base capable of leading by example. AGORA’s approach is to train the Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) not only to understand Metaverse’s infrastructure but also to understand and oscillate between the different levels of Metaverse’s business and societal value, paving in this way a more integrated understanding of this disruptive ecosystem. Combining theoretical and hands-on industrial research and transferable skills training will enable researchers to target high-quality publication outlets and to become creative and autonomous so that they can exploit and commercialize research results and become competitive in the global arena.

One of AGORA’s unique selling points is its ability to prepare the ESRs to work in any of the three pathways (academia, industry, policy making) as well as their intersections. AGORA’s inter-sectoral network brings together leading academic and non-academic co-supervision arrangements of high quality, stimulates the development of new industrial doctoral training procedures between top business schools and industries in the region.

The AGORA consortium comprises 12 partners from academia and industry and plans to support 17 Doctoral Candidates over a period of 4 years, who will conduct research on Metaverses.

AGORA has already announced some DC Openings, while more openings will be announced in the upcoming months! DC Openings seeking highly skilled researchers, who will conduct breakthrough research on Metaverses and explore their technical, business and societal values can be found here.

AGORA Kick-Off Meeting

admin — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 12:16:36 +0000

The inaugural Kick-Off Meeting of AGORA (TrAining younG researchers On shaping Metaverse for business and social vAlue) project within the AGORA MSCA Doctoral Network took place on Friday the 6th of October.

The inaugural meeting marks the beginning of an exciting journey towards unlocking the full potential of the Metaverse.
The AGORA Consortium is made up of prestigious institutions and organisations, each bringing unique expertise and perspectives to the table.

Consortium members include the University of Nicosia, the University of Sheffield, Audencia Business School, the Athens Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, INNOV-ACTS, the University of Agder and Maggioli.

During the meeting, each consortium member gave an insight into their respective work and contributions in the work packages of the AGORA project. The members of the consortium, from different disciplines and corners of the world, have set a strong precedent for collaboration, innovation and commitment.

For more information about AGORA, you can always check the blog posts section of our website.