Featured case studies
Engagements that show the range: a hospital culture pilot, a peer-reviewed nurse leadership program, a peer-reviewed workplace study and a community program still running today.
Hard conversations, in the rooms they happen in
A hospital break room, a nursing corridor, an office at Google and a council counter.
Each scene began with an exchange someone wished had gone differently, and each program was measured by the people who ran it.
Mater Education
Speaking with Good Judgement
Mater's feedback and speaking-up program, rebuilt in VR inside recreations of its own hospital rooms.
A culture program moved into the headset
Engagement in the face-to-face delivery was waning. PTR built a branched VR experience with Mater Education, its team leads and the Centre for Medical Simulation at Harvard.
It was delivered to more than 60 participants across Mater campuses, and Mater's facilitators were trained to run it themselves.
What Mater measured
Mater Education evaluated the pilot with the staff who took it. These are its figures.
said they enjoyed the experience
reported an increase in their concentration
found the VR training more engaging than face to face
wanted more VR-based learning in future programs
Figures as reported by Mater Education following its program evaluation.Mater Education, immersive learning pilot closure report, 2025
Mayo Clinic
A Day In a Lifetime
Short VR scenarios drawn from Mayo Clinic nurses' own experiences of bias, racism and allyship, with a facilitated debrief after each one.
Measured twice, and the gains held
Built by People Tech Revolution and co-designed with Mayo Clinic nursing staff, the series reached more than 1,100 nurse and social worker leaders across Mayo Clinic campuses.
Two peer-reviewed papers reported gains in empathy and in willingness to act as an upstander, with most gains still present months later. Read the controlled trial.
The scenes Mayo Clinic leaders stepped into
A corridor where a colleague has looked away, a patient who speaks in his own time, a young man in a support conversation.
"It's not just about seeing a different perspective - it's about feeling it. That's where real change begins."
Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution. Forbes, June 2025
VR DEI training
Four VR scenarios built from real incidents at Google, co-designed with its DEI team, and written up in a peer-reviewed CHI paper.
Two perspectives on one incident
PTR co-founder Leonie Sanderson co-designed the scenarios with Google's DEI volunteers, so trainees stand inside a difficult workplace situation from two sides.
In the CHI 2024 study, 91% of testers rated the scenarios realistic, the first cohort's average satisfaction was 4.7 out of 5, and all but one rated the training better than Google's standard DEI training.
Inside the Google scenarios
A hybrid meeting, a reply to choose in a meeting room, two colleagues in the lunch area.
Central Coast Council
Raising awareness of disability
A VR experience co-designed with the Council's Access and Inclusion Reference Group, delivered more than 200 times across the community.
The beach and the shopping centre, from a wheelchair
The Council wanted the wider community, not only its staff, to understand what people with a disability face at the beach and in the local shopping centre.
The program is now part of teacher training, council staff training and CSIRO-facilitated sessions, and it is PTR's most sustained community-facing work.
The moments in the Central Coast build
Guide markers on the sand, a participant laughing mid-scenario, a carer at the open car door.
Where next
Each sector hub holds the studies from one field, and the research page holds the peer-reviewed detail.
And more places to look
The aged-care hub, and the peer-reviewed detail behind the figures above.
See a result here you want for your own team?
