A consortium of 41 international researchers, known as the Openverse, has published protocols aimed at standardizing virtual reality research in behavioral science. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team argues that VR can help address the reproducibility crisis affecting the field.

“VR research hasn’t been held back by the technology. It’s been held back by the absence of shared standards.”

The researchers note that while VR technology has advanced rapidly, methodological standards have lagged behind. Their initiative addresses three areas: interoperability across hardware and software platforms, standardized procedures for conducting studies, and shared data resources including code and virtual assets. An interactive online checklist at vrprotocols.org is meant to guide researchers through implementation.

The protocols emphasize that VR’s capacity to recreate identical immersive environments across different locations makes it especially valuable for replication studies. As the researchers put it, “VR is not only a research method, it is also an entire portable laboratory.”

Publication

The paper, “Creating common virtual ground: Protocols to democratize open VR research,” appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 30, 2026 (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2524991123), with funding from Swissuniversities.