Breakthroughs in microscopy transformed biology, fMRI revolutionized neuroscience, and computational modeling reshaped economics. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of 41 authors from around the globe argue that virtual reality has the potential to do the same for behavioural science and help solve the reproducibility crisis .
Virtual reality is a proverbial holy grail for researchers, allowing studies to immerse participants in hyper-realistic environments and control that environment down to the most minute detail. However, as with many new technologies, excitement is outpacing rigour. With the constant advances in VR technology and the lowering of prices, the field risks becoming a proverbial "Wild West" with methodological protocols varying widely across disciplines.
The members of the Openverse — a team of VR researchers dispersed across the globe and representing a wide range of disciplines — see this as an opportunity. In this landmark paper, they outline a future vision for VR research that puts open science practices and technological accessibility at its core. Through an interactive checklist (available at www.vrprotocols.org ), researchers from any field in the behavioral sciences can ensure that the running and reporting of their VR study aligns with the most recent version of the protocols.
"VR research hasn't been held back by the technology. It's been held back by the absence of shared standards. These protocols give the field a common language for researchers, reviewers, and journal editors alike," said Anand P. A. van Zelderen, founder of the Openverse and Assistant Professor at SKEMA Business School.
The checklist developed addresses three critical issues facing VR research:
Interoperability: VR studies are currently locked to specific hardware and software, forcing researchers to rebuild experiments from scratch. The protocols push for common engines, open standards, and clear licensing so simulations can move between labs and remain usable as technology improves.
Procedural standardization: Even with the exact same materials, two labs can get different results if they brief participants differently or use inconsistent measures. The protocols specify a common set of practices — including standard measures like "VR presence" — plus shared ethics, accessibility, and safety baselines.
Data sharing: Beyond just sharing results, the protocols cover sharing the VR materials themselves — code and virtual assets — so other researchers can directly reuse and replicate a simulation.
Senior author on the paper Timothy D. Hubbard, Professor at Dublin City University, who designed the interactive online checklist, said he hoped "these can provide future scholars with guiding principles for developing their studies and improve the overall quality of research in our field".
That said, the Openverse argues that these protocols won't just help maintain standards; they could also help address one of the major challenges facing behavioural science: reproducibility. Over the past couple of decades, the behavioural sciences have been rocked by research showing low reproducibility, i.e., using the same study design and measures, scholars cannot replicate past research findings. VR may offer a solution to this.
Due to its unique ability to fully immerse participants in a virtual environment, VR is not only highly realistic, it is also highly repeatable. VR studies have been conducted all over the world, even on the International Space Station, with participants' experiences being exactly the same regardless of location. As University of California, Merced Research Scientist Theodore C. Masters-Waage noted, this is because "VR is not only a research method, it is also an entire portable laboratory, allowing researchers to meticulously design every part of the participants' experience from start to finish."
This publication is "the first step towards the Openverse's goal to break down paywalls and technological barriers, making VR research more widely available to all," van Zelderen said. "Now we want to see these protocols adopted widely, so VR research can really take off across the behavioural sciences."
Funding support for this project comes from Swissuniversities (TP62_OMRC).
About SKEMA Business School
SKEMA Business School is a French grande école with campuses across five continents, including sites in France, China, the United States, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and South Africa. The school educates more than 10,000 students representing over 130 nationalities and counts over 54,000 graduates working in 145 countries. SKEMA entered the Financial Times' Top 20 European Business Schools ranking for the first time in 2025, climbing to 16th place — its sharpest rise in the ranking's history — and its Global Executive MBA is ranked among the world's top 10 programs for international trade content.
About the University of California, Merced
The University of California, Merced is the newest campus in the prestigious University of California system and the first American research university built in the 21st century. UC Merced was designated a Carnegie Tier One public research university recognized by U.S. News & World Report as the 25th best public university in the nation. UC Merced is ranked No. 3 among public universities and has earned the No. 1 ranking in social mobility and sustainability by the Wall Street Journal. Located in California's Central Valley, UC Merced serves more than 9,000 students and is committed to fostering inclusive excellence, innovative research, and community impact.
About Dublin City University
Dublin City University (DCU) is a public research university located across three campuses in north Dublin, serving more than 20,000 students from over 120 countries across five faculties. DCU was the first university in Ireland to integrate workplace internships into its undergraduate courses, with the majority of its programmes now offering work-based learning. The university ranks #1 in Ireland for Quality of Research and has risen in this year's QS World University Rankings, reflecting its growing international research profile.
