Across Europe, civic education is struggling to keep pace with the democratic needs of a digital generation. Traditional efforts — textbooks, workshops, even media literacy campaigns — have not evolved quickly enough to meet the scale of disinformation and political alienation that now define online civic life.
But one thing is becoming clear: if we want democratic values to survive the algorithmic age, we need formats that go beyond facts. We need tools that let people step into democracy, not just study it.
That’s where immersive civic tech comes in.
Today, very few platforms reimagine democratic learning as something young people can experience rather than study. The EU Democracy Campus is one of them. It reimagines civic education not as content delivery, but as democratic rehearsal — through role-play, simulation, and multilingual collaboration. It is a space where young people simulate parliaments, confront disinformation, and experience political participation firsthand.
Why now?
Because the traditional models of civic education — textbooks, lectures, even social media campaigns — are collapsing under the weight of a new threat:
A digital landscape where truth is fluid, attention is weaponized, and algorithmic feeds shape how millions perceive reality.
We are no longer dealing with misinformation as a side effect. It is a structural challenge to democratic literacy. According to the 2024 Eurobarometer survey on media and democracy, 76% of Europeans aged 16–30 say they encounter disinformation online at least weekly. Nearly half report uncertainty about distinguishing real from fake news.
This erosion of informational clarity isn’t just a media problem — it’s a civic one. When facts feel unstable and institutions feel distant, the foundations of democratic trust begin to crack. Simply providing more information is no longer enough. Young people need spaces to explore how power works, what participation means, and why democracy is worth defending.
What’s emerging in response is a shift — from information-based democracy to experience-based democracy.
From teaching facts to simulating power.
From learning rights to role-playing responsibility.
From civic knowledge to civic rehearsal.
At REDefine, we’re witnessing this shift through our immersive digital campus for European democracy built in FrameVR.io. And what we’re seeing tells us this isn’t a gimmick. It’s a format evolution — one that directly supports the EU’s Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027) and the European Democracy Action Plan (2020), both of which call for innovative, digital-first tools to promote active citizenship and counter disinformation.
Why Disinformation Made Democracy Harder to Teach
Traditional civic education approaches — especially in formal school systems — are struggling to meet the urgency of today’s challenges. Textbook-driven courses often reduce political participation to institutional memorization. In many EU countries, civics is only taught as a one-semester subject, usually without meaningful discussion, simulation, or connection to lived experiences.
In a 2023 European Commission analysis on civic education effectiveness, only 38% of students across the EU reported that their civics lessons helped them understand real political events. The OECD’s latest PISA 2022 data on global competence reveals that only a minority of 15-year-olds across participating EU countries reported feeling prepared to detect fake news, engage with conflicting viewpoints, or discuss political issues with peers — confirming a continuing gap between democratic theory and personal confidence in democratic engagement.
Meanwhile, disinformation campaigns exploit this vacuum. Students might learn about how laws are passed, but not how to detect a deepfake. They might understand democratic institutions in theory — but remain vulnerable to viral conspiracy videos that claim the EU is a globalist scam.
This is the gap immersive platforms like the EU Democracy Campus aim to close.
The civic education systems many of us grew up with — well-intentioned as they were — weren’t designed for this reality. They assumed a baseline of shared facts. They assumed information would be passively consumed, not aggressively distorted. They never imagined a generation fluent in content and irony but paralyzed by volume, contradiction, and doubt.
We used to say young people were “disengaged.” That’s no longer accurate. They are overloaded.
They scroll through global crises, culture wars, and climate collapse with no clear way to act. The institutions they’re supposed to trust speak slowly. Social media speak instantly.
So we stopped asking: How do we teach democracy?
And started asking: How do we let them practice it?
The Emergence of Immersive Civic Platforms
It started quietly: simulations in classrooms, VR parliamentary mock-ups, role-based debates at summer schools. But so far, the movement remains small. Civic education, while evolving, is still slow to respond to the speed, complexity, and emotional reality of today’s digital challenges. There are only a handful of initiatives across Europe exploring immersive formats in a sustained, scalable way.
From municipal consultation tools to EU-funded civic Metaverses, we are witnessing the emergence of a new public infrastructure for democracy. The key shift? Embodiment.
- Young people don’t just read about democracy — they simulate it.
- They don’t passively learn rights — they negotiate and defend them.
- They don’t imagine EU decision-making — they step inside it.
This reflects not only pedagogical innovation but EU policy momentum. The Council Recommendation on the key competences for lifelong learning (2018) includes civic competence among the eight core priorities. The EU Youth Strategy (2019–2027) further calls for tools that enable democratic participation across borders and social groups.
What the EU Democracy Campus Shows Us
The EU Democracy Campus is REDefine’s immersive civic learning platform — developed with and for youth across Europe, and powered by FrameVR.io.
Inside, users role-play through high-stakes debates: international law enforcement, international crisis management, or fake news response. One session might place you in a recreated European Parliament chamber; another in a EU Crisis Management Room.
The roles change — MEPs, activists, journalists, observers. But the outcomes are consistent: engagement, empathy, clarity.
As we carry out pilot trainings and consultations with youth and educators we consistently find:
- Participants report increased understanding of EU governance.
- Young people feel more confident expressing political views.
- Educators welcome the opportunity to engage learners in experiential and immersive experiences.
One teacher said: “For the first time, civic education didn’t feel abstract. It felt immediate. My students came alive.”
FrameVR.io: Why Infrastructure Matters
The EU Democracy Campus is built in FrameVR.io, a flexible, browser-based platform designed for virtual collaboration across borders and bandwidths.
- Real-time AI translation in 30+ languages.
- Live captions for inclusive participation.
- Cross-device compatibility (VR headsets, smartphones, tablets, desktops).
The infrastructure is what makes this civic format scalable and just. It ensures participation isn’t determined by geography, language, or hardware. It enables deliberative, inclusive, multilingual learning environments — not just simulations.
Where the Trend Is Going
We believe immersive civic tech is on track to become mainstream democratic infrastructure — not just educational enrichment.
What’s next:
While it’s too early to predict mainstream adoption, we may begin to see more educational institutions experimenting with interactive, digitally enhanced civic modules. Some may explore embedding immersive activities into existing civics curricula or piloting transnational simulations that mimic EU decision-making.
We might also see hybrid learning models emerge — blending physical classrooms with shared virtual political spaces where students debate policy, negotiate across borders, and rehearse civic processes in real time.
The European Commission’s Mid-Term Review of the Digital Education Action Plan (2024) highlighted the need for “scalable, participatory, and multilingual civic learning solutions.” The EU Democracy Campus already delivers on this vision.
We’re not just watching a trend. We’re working inside it.
And what we see is promising.
Democracy doesn’t begin at the ballot box. It begins in the classroom — physical or virtual.
It begins with logging in — not to scroll, but to build. Together.
