Open standards are a strategic priority in European research and innovation policy, particularly for immersive technologies and virtual worlds. Under Horizon Europe and Digital Europe, proposals are increasingly expected not only to adopt open standards, but to contribute to their evolution, support

The Khronos Group is a consortium of technology companies and industry experts that develops open standards for graphics, compute, and vision processing. Through initiatives like Vulkan, OpenGL, and WebGL, Khronos Group defines cross-platform APIs for accelerating graphics rendering and computational tasks across diverse hardware platforms. Developers can learn about Khronos Group's standards, participate in working groups, and leverage open APIs for building high-performance graphics and compute applications.

Khronos

OpenXR is the leading open standard for XR runtimes, developed by the Khronos Group. European entities in EU-funded projects (Horizon Europe, Digital Europe) can contribute to OpenXR through consortium partners who become Khronos members, not directly as projects. Contributions include identifying gaps, prototyping extensions, providing validation results, and sharing implementation insights. Key challenges involve managing IP rights, confidentiality obligations, and patent licensing under the Khronos IP Framework. The guide outlines practical pathways for engagement across upcoming Horizon Europe calls focused on Virtual Worlds and Web 4.0, emphasizing that meaningful contribution often takes the form of requirements, architectural insights, and implementation experience rather than direct specification writing.

Open standards, OpenXR, and European pathways to global XR interoperability

Open standards as a strategic pillar of EU digital policy

Khronos Group: governance, neutrality, and European engagement

What meaningful contribution looks like in practice

Horizon Europe calls as practical case studies for standards engagement

The role of engines and open-source ecosystems