Global Multistakeholder High Level Conference on Governance of Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds

The European Commission and the 2025 Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU are organising a Global Multistakeholder High Level Conference on the governance of Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds, on 31 March and 1 April 2025.

Objectives

The conference aims to define the principles for the global governance of Web 4.0 and virtual worlds that are up-to-speed with the dynamics of digital spaces, ensuring transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability.

The event will bring together, from all over the world, high-level policymakers, technologists, academics, and community leaders who will collaboratively propose governance models of virtual worlds. It will focus on policy solutions for an ethical, value-driven shift to Web 4.0. and standardisation issues related to virtual worlds (including internet standards) and its technical management. Alignment of those governance frameworks with the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance will also be a salient topic of discussion.

Conference expected outcomes

The conference aims at the adoption of policy and technical recommendations for the future governance of Web 4.0 and Virtual Worlds, based on consensus at the event. These intend to serve as inspiration for forthcoming discussions such as the 20 years review of the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS+20).

Background

The conference delivers on Action 9 of the European Commission Communication “An EU initiative on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds: a head start in the next technological transition“ which was adopted in 2023. This action requires the European Commission to “engage with existing multi-stakeholder internet governance institutions to design open and interoperable virtual worlds [from Q4 2023]; and support the creation of a technical multi-stakeholder forum to address certain aspects of virtual worlds and Web 4.0 beyond the remit of existing internet governance bodies [from Q1 2024].

See the agenda and register here.