CREATING A RESTORATIVE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
A BUSINESS FINLAND CO-CREATION PROJECT
WHAT?
We and Business Finland believe restorative virtual environments have great potential for relaxation services, marketing and advertising, brand building, equipment manufacturers, travel business and content producers.
Studies in environmental psychology show that spending time in a forest or natural space is good for your mental and physical health. The extent of the benefits obtained can be measured and will depend on, amongst other things, the time spent in the space and what activities are undertaken. We are building a virtual equivalent of this experience intended for people who can’t easily get to real restorative spaces.
The emphasis is on quantifying the effectiveness of the virtual environment by using real-time psychological and physiological measures. We envisage that this will be beneficial to different user groups such as young well workers, people spending time in confined spaces, older people in home environments, and hospital patients.
Each of these offer different business opportunities, including delivery of experiential advertising. The primary target market countries are China, Japan and Korea, but we encourage participation from companies whose interests are in other markets as well.
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The project team at Tampere University will carry out initial research studies during the first part of the 6-month Co-Creation project.
WHO?
Business Finland has awarded Tampere University funding for the Co-Creation project. The 6-month project started on 1.3.2019 and will finish on 31.8.2019.
The output from the project is a corporate eco-system and a proposal for a Co-Innovation project on restorative virtual environments, which will be submitted to Business Finland shortly after 31.8.2019. This proposal will be based around separate proposals for research funds to Business Finland from members on the consortium.
The consortium and the eco-system
The consortium is a group of Finnish companies or companies that have a significant presence in Finland. These companies have interest in products related to restorative virtual environments, and the companies will apply for funding from Business Finland to support their research and development.
The eco-system is a wider group of companies and academic partners at Tampere University and other universities in Finland with expertise in this field. These companies will follow the Co-Innovation project and can contribute to it, but they do not apply for funding from Business Finland.
The benefits of being in the consortium
It will be easier to obtain funding for research projects from Business Finland if the projects are part of a common agenda to create business from products related to restorative virtual environments. By funding the starter Co-Creation project, Business Finland has clearly said it wants to fund research and development in this area.
The scientific knowledge and expertise in the participating Finnish universities will be at the company’s disposal
The researchers can help the company plan and carry out the research projects. Tampere University has the scientific expertise needed to create the virtual environments, to study the restorative experiences in real and virtual spaces, and to generate advertising and business models. Importantly, consortium members can influence the direction and the emphasis in the research agenda towards their own products and interests. Information from these projects will be shared between those in the eco-system, but will be subject to IP agreements declared at the start of the project.
HOW?
Consortium members need to apply for their own research funding and will get a proportion of project costs from Business Finland, 70% for SMEs and 40% for larger companies. There is no cost otherwise in participating other than travel to the Workshop events.
Tampere University is running the Co-Creation project, and has 3 contributing disciplines:
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TAUCHI provides expertise on human-computer interaction, multimodal interaction, virtual environment design, construction and evaluation.
ENVIWELL RESEARCH GROUP provides expertise on environmental psychology and measuring the restorative benefits of spending time in real and virtual natural spaces.
THE FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS provides experience on market analysis and experiential advertising. It is very probable that a second Finnish university will be invited to join the Co-Innovation project.​
Research questions considered
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What proportion of the benefits obtained from being in a real natural space, such as a forest can be obtained from spending time in a virtual equivalent of the same environment?
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What is the best way to measure these benefits for different use cases?
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What are the trade-offs in the level of restorative benefits obtained in the virtual environment between spending different periods of time, passive or active restoration, undertaking different activities?
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How best to simulate active restoration in the virtual environment by walking or moving through it?
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How to track and gamify restoration in a way akin to personal fitness tracking to encourage returning to the virtual space?
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What is the impact of using a 360o video or a 3D textured graphics model on the restorative value of the virtual environment?
CONTACT
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Responsible leader:
Howell Istance (howell.istance@tuni.fi)
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Corporate eco-system:
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Juho Rissanen
(juho.p.rissanen@tuni.fi)
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Teemu Kiiveri