VR Health Champions Open Call 2026

From 74 competitive applications submitted across Europe, 14 SMEs were selected  — one per challenge — as winners of the VR Health Champions Open Call 2026, highlighting the diversity, quality, and growing maturity of Europe’s XR health ecosystem.

Launched on 1 October  2025 and closed on 7 December 2025, the Open Call attracted innovators from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Hungary. The call was structured around 14 challenges defined by the project’s five Flagship SMEs, spanning the full lifecycle of XR solutions, from early-stage research and technical development to clinical validation, cybersecurity, regulatory readiness, and market deployment.

The strong level of interest in the Open Call resulted in intense competition and a high number of high-quality applications. Reflecting on this response, Cristiana Costa, Project Coordinator, commented:

“The response to the VR Health Champions Open Call 2026 clearly exceeded our expectations. We received a very high number of strong and well-aligned enquiries, confirming both the relevance of the challenges and the growing maturity of Europe’s XR healthcare ecosystem. To ensure that all promising candidates had a fair opportunity to participate, we decided to extend the application deadline to 7 December. This decision reflects our commitment to quality, impact, and meaningful collaboration, giving applicants additional time to further develop well-structured proposals addressing one of the 14 challenges and to prepare for collaboration with the VR Health Champions Flagship projects through cascade funding.”

Following the evaluation process,  14 SMEs — one per challenge — were selected for their strong strategic fit, technical excellence, and capacity to address the specific innovation gaps identified by the Flagship SMEs. Their solutions demonstrate clear potential to strengthen interregional value chains and accelerate the adoption, validation, and scale-up of XR technologies in European healthcare.

Dotlumen SRL (.lumen) challenges winners

1. Challenge Winner – Cybersecurity and Remote OTA for Head-Worn Devices
   Human Opsis G.P. (Greece) is a human-centred team specialising in immersive technology, advanced HCI, and usable security and privacy. They design robust XR systems that combine technical excellence with behavioural insight, contributing expertise in XR prototyping, interaction design, secure architectures, and privacy-by-design to support trustworthy and scalable healthcare and training solutions.
2. Challenge Winner – Indoor / Outdoor SLAM & VIO in Wearables
   Picaresque S.R.L. (Italy) is an XR and video game development studio with deep expertise in high-fidelity digital scanning. Within the VR Health Champions consortium, Picaresque is partnering with dotLumen SRL to develop advanced SLAM and VIO technologies. Together, we are developing next-generation wearables designed to safely enhance the mobility and independence of visually impaired individuals.
3. Challenge Winner – Machine Learning Monocular Depth R&D
   LOCUTUS INTEGRATOR SRL (Romania) – A precision ML consultancy where cross-domain depth replaces committee bandwidth: computer vision, edge deployment, and clinical understanding. They will design and optimize the monocular depth models that replace bulky 3D sensing hardware, making .lumen’s assistive glasses lighter, wearable, and truly all-day usable for the visually impaired.

MedApp S.A.  challenges winners

1. Challenge Winner – Pilot Clinical Stage Investigation & Formative Usability Evaluation (Kidney Biopsy AR Navigation)
   Visionage Srl  (Italy) specializes in eHealth development, with a focus on clinical decision support systems and patient empowerment solutions. As part of VR Health Champions, Visionage will collaborate with MedApp to conduct a pilot clinical investigation and formative usability evaluation of CarnaLife Holo MedNav for AR-guided kidney biopsies, generating early safety, performance, and workflow evidence to support MDR compliance.
2. Challenge Winner – Segmentation (annotation) of a abdomen and chest CT images dataset
   Medical Simualtion Technologies (Poland) specialises in cutting-edge simulation technologies for interventional cardiology. Our portfolio focuses on training healthcare professionals in echocardiography and structural heart procedures. By providing highly realistic simulations, we aim to enhance both the skill and confidence of medical practitioners. Our innovative solutions ensure safer, more efficient procedures, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

MEEVA  challenges winners

1. Challenge Winner – Feasibility Study for VR Skills Training in Neurodivergent Teens
   AdeoLab (Slovenia) is an innovation and strategy company specialising in transforming early-stage ideas into market-ready solutions. With expertise in digital health and digital solutions, they contribute to collaborative initiatives through strategic advisory, market validation and design of scalable innovation pathways.
2. Challenge Winner – Marketing & Communication Plan for VR Skills Training in Neurodivergent Teens
   Hg blu (Italy). A communication agency that works alongside companies to help them express who they truly are, with clarity and authenticity. It crafts bespoke strategies that blend technical expertise with creative sensitivity, shaping brand identities, websites, and communication tools that feel alive and coherent. Through a collaborative process, businesses gain awareness, define their place in the market, and build meaningful, lasting relationships with their audiences.
3. Challenge Winner – VR-Specific Technical & Documentation Framework Development
   Chino.io (Italy) – a “one stop shop” for solving all regulatory, privacy and security compliance aspects in digital health and med-tech projects.They will work with MEEVA to bring their neurodiversity health project to market and ensure correct implementation of their Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) regulatory pathways, risk management, quality management systems, as well as data protection and cybersecurity compliance.

Metaskills challenges winners

1. Challenge Winner – Defining and Implementing a Digital Twin Model for Soft Skills, based on Structured Indicators, JSON Data Representations, and Competency Level Mapping
   Agnieszka Cyniak (Poland) – Leadership development expert and founder specialising in soft skills, mental resilience, and competency-based development frameworks. She supports leaders and organisations in translating behavioural competencies into structured, measurable development models. Within VR Health Champions, she will collaborate with Metaskills to define and implement a Digital Twin model for soft skills, focusing on competency mapping and structured behavioural indicators.
2. Challenge Winner – Development of an Integrated Platform for Scenario Authoring, License Management, and Reporting for AI-driven VR Soft Skills Training
   Canary Technology Innovations (Romania) is an applied R&D and product studio building secure AI-driven platforms for digital health and enterprise workflows. The team combines full-stack engineering with strong experience in European R&I projects, from implementation and reporting to exploitation. Within VR Health Champions, CanaryTech will deliver the core multi-tenant platform work for the MetaSkills challenge, including Directus integration, a scenario authoring wizard for non-technical users, and role-based access plus license management.
3. Challenge Winner – On-Premise Language Models (SLM/LLM) Proof-of-Concept for Secure and Scalable AI-Assisted VR Training
   ReForms21 sp. z o.o. (Poland) will collaborate with MetaSkills to compare SLMs and LLMs in an on-premise environment, assessing trade-offs in quality, scalability, and cost for EU market compliance. The outcome will be a vendor-neutral proof of concept with deployment recommendations and a reference architecture supporting MetaSkills’ MVP development and international rollout.

Virtuleap challenges winners

1. Challenge Winner – Development of Healthcare Professional Onboarding for VR Adoption
   MetaMedicsVR Sociedad Limitada (Spain) A fast-growing medtech start-up specialising in VR/AR training solutions with international reach. Within VR Health Champions, they will collaborate with Virtuleap to design a structured onboarding programme for healthcare professionals. The expected outcome is a mid-fidelity onboarding prototype that accelerates adoption and reduces integration barriers.
2. Challenge Winner – GDPR, Cybersecurity, and Software Verification and Validation for Cogniclear VR
   DOTSOFT (Greece) – a fast-growing European ICT SME founded in 2004, specialising in advanced software engineering, systems integration and innovation-driven digital transformation. With extensive expertise in IoT platforms, sensor data processing, decision support systems, workflow and knowledge management, and AI-enabled applications, DOTSOFT delivers scalable solutions for mobility, e-health, energy and smart systems.
3. Challenge Winner – Market Entry and Product Launch Strategy for Cogniclear VR in Two EU Markets
   Dual Up Consulting (Portugal) – We are a management and innovation consultancy specializing in supporting R&D-intensive organizations in the health and digital domains to bring advanced technologies from concept to market. Within VR Health Champions, we will collaborate with Virtuleap to design an evidence-based market entry and product launch strategy for Cogniclear VR, specifically tailored to accelerate adoption in private healthcare ecosystems across two priority EU markets.

Together, the 14 selected SMEs represent highly specialised European companies contributing advanced expertise  at the intersection of health and immersive technologies in Europe. In addition to grant funding of up to €60,000 per SME, the selected applicant will engage in structured collaboration with the respective Flagship SMEs to address defined challenges. Through this process, they will contribute to strengthening interregional XR healthcare value chains, advancing technical development and validation activities, and supporting market readiness and regulatory alignment in line with the objectives of the VR Health Champions project.

The Open Call 2026 marks the second edition of the VR Health Champions project. The first Open Call, launched in 2025, resulted in the selection of four winning SMEs, laying the groundwork for collaborative innovation and validating the programme’s challenge-driven approach to XR adoption in healthcare.

Building on this momentum, the selected SMEs will now enter a focused collaboration phase, working closely with the flagship partners to implement the selected challenges, test and validate solutions, and prepare the ground for scalable and impactful XR adoption across Europe.

Stay tuned.