EN ΕΛ SR NO
About the project

The problem we're solving

Female humanities students are locked out of digital skills training, and women's testimonies of conflict are going undocumented. This project tackles both at once.

Needs analysis

Three interconnected needs

01 · The digital confidence gap

Women remain a small minority of ICT specialists and students across Southern Europe and the Western Balkans. Evidence shows this is a confidence gap, not a competence gap — most acute in non-STEM disciplines where digital skills training is largely absent from the curriculum.

02 · No gender-sensitive pedagogy

Universities across the partner countries lack a validated pedagogical model that integrates immersive media into humanities curricula in a way that is gender-sensitive, ethically grounded, and measurable.

03 · Underdocumented testimonies

Partners in Greece, Serbia and Cyprus work in or near regions with living memory of conflict and displacement. The testimonies of affected women are systematically underrepresented in the digital cultural record.

How we get there

Six activities, one shared goal

Understanding the starting point

Before teaching begins, we study where digital confidence actually stands for humanities students across Cyprus, Norway, Greece and Serbia.

Building the curriculum

Oral history methodology, psychological preparation, VR/360° production and digital archiving, brought together and tested before it reaches a classroom.

Training the facilitators

A hands-on training event in Athens prepares facilitators from all four countries to run the curriculum with their own students.

Running the pilots

The curriculum runs in parallel across all four countries, with each cohort going on to record real testimonies from local women affected by conflict and displacement.

Building the Matrix of Voices app

The VR application that will host the finished archive, built and tested in stages — from early prototype to a free, public release.

Sharing what we learn

Findings are published openly, alongside public exhibitions in every partner country and a closing event in Cyprus.

See what we're publishing, and when →

Objectives

Five objectives across 36 months

  • Develop and validate a four-module gender-sensitive curriculum for female humanities students with no prior digital experience, across CY, NO, GR and RS.
  • Build the Matrix of Voices VR application, hosting 20 student-produced 360° testimonies, accessible open-access beyond the project lifetime.
  • Deliver the curriculum to a minimum of 60 female humanities students across four pilot sites, measuring pre/post digital self-efficacy improvement.
  • Produce an Evaluation Report and Policy Brief with actionable recommendations for scaling gender-sensitive digital skills interventions.
  • Ensure sustainability through open-access publication in four languages, a three-year hosting commitment from CYENS, and partner adoption commitments.
Target groups

Who the project reaches

  • Female humanities students with no prior VR or digital production experience — minimum 60 across four sites, 15 per site.
  • Students from refugee and displaced backgrounds, recruited through the Greek Council for Refugees' PYXIDA network in Athens.
  • Conflict-affected women as testimony witnesses — a minimum of 20, five per site — recruited through partner and civil society networks.
What makes it distinctive

Digital skills and cultural memory, in the same act

VR production, oral history methodology and gender equity initiatives all exist separately in European higher education. HerStory in VR is the first to combine them: a student does not learn VR production as an abstract skill, then separately study oral history — she gains digital production competence by giving permanent voice to a woman whose story would otherwise go unrecorded. The educational output and the cultural output are the same object.