Aplicații digitale inedite, Timișoara în VR și călătorii în lumea digitală la Noaptea Cercetătorilor Europeni 2026

Politehnica University of Timișoara (UPT), through the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education, together with the Multimedia Center and alongside the cultural project Spotlight Heritage Timișoara, successfully marked a new edition of the European Researchers' Night 2026 event. On Friday, September 25, between 6:00 PM and 11:00 PM, the Timișoara public responded to the invitation to participate in an evening full of experiments, journeys through virtual worlds and forays into the future of education, guided by the research results of the projects in the E³UDRES² Alliance and "Accelerate Future HEI".

With free admission, the event offered participants the chance to explore and rediscover the history, culture and heritage of Timișoara through alternative methods with the help of Spotlight Heritage Timișoara branded virtual applications, interacting with a complex real-virtual world through state-of-the-art digital technologies.

The activities took place in parallel in two major points of interest in the city, attracting a large audience:

ExperimentariumTM – UPT Technical Museum

At the UPT Technical Museum / ExperimentariumTM (Splaiul Spiru Haret), over 150 people crossed the threshold on Friday evening to take part in the experiences prepared for them:

For the first time, participants discovered the DEMO version of the new VR edutainment & science application, through which the general public can discover the specializations at ID and IFR - an application developed by ecihpa DeL, within the project Accelerate Future HEI
A foray into the history of computer science, with a close look at MECIPT-1, the first Romanian university computer, presented by our experts;

The latest applications Heritage in the spotlight / Spotlight Heritage Timișoara of Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (AR/MR);
New interactive edutainment applications for the little ones, in Virtual Reality;
AR games, through which participants discovered the history and multiculturalism of the city, interacting directly with objects from the local cultural heritage;
Fun moments with applications dedicated to science and technology;
Presentation of the results of European research and innovation projects within E³UDRES² Alliance (with emphasis on the E³UDRES² Arena platform) and the project Accelerate Future HEI, offering an applied perspective on new directions in future education.

Nokia Campus

At Nokia Campus, the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education (DeL), together with the cultural project Spotlight Heritage Timișoara, created an immersive space for participants where the public could discover a wide range of digital projects and installations developed by students of Politehnica University Timișoara in partnership with international students from European University Alliance E³UDRES². Also within this interactive space, visitors explored the results of European research and innovation projects carried out through the E³UDRES² Alliance, along with the perspectives and directions of education through the project. Accelerate Future HEI.

Over 1600 people visited the DeL UPT space, from energetic and enthusiastic children to curious parents who wanted to try and experience the digital applications and installations in the dedicated space.

These include:

The new VR edutainment applications developed by the DeL UPT team, through which children discovered in an interactive and captivating manner what it means to be a student at the faculties of the 4 specializations at Distance Learning (DLL) and Short-Form Learning (SFL).
Nokia VR Bell Labs Museum – a virtual reality application developed by student Cătălin Săvoiu, which offered visitors the opportunity to interactively explore the phone models that marked the history of communications.
Interactive edutainment, mobile and mixed reality applications, represented by AR games, through which they could interact with historical objects from the city's cultural heritage, from the archive of the National Museum of Banat.
Latest apps Heritage in the Spotlight/Spotlight Heritage Timișoara by Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (AR/MR);