How organizations can engage with SFR's validation and research activities
This page is for universities, research institutions, human performance laboratories, and rehabilitation research programs interested in understanding how they might contribute to future SFR validation and research. There are no active programs at this stage. This page is informational only.
No active programs. There are no active research programs, partnership agreements, or participation opportunities available at this time. This page describes what future participation might look like, not what is currently available.
No promises or commitments. Nothing on this page constitutes a commitment, guarantee, or offer from the SFR framework. Research participation will require separate agreements and arrangements that do not yet exist.
No recruitment language. This page is not an attempt to recruit participants, research partners, or institutions. It is an informational overview for organizations that want to understand the future research landscape and how they might eventually fit into it.
With that context established: the SFR validation path (described in detail on the Validation Roadmap) will require external participation from research institutions, simulation operators, and human performance laboratories. This page describes what that participation would look like and what it would require.
Future SFR research and validation activities would involve four primary types of organizations. Each has a different role in the validation path.
Research institutions with simulation laboratories, human performance research programs, or expertise in vestibular neuroscience, motor learning, or training transfer are relevant for criterion validity research (Stage 4 of the validation path).
Relevant for: Stage 4 criterion validity research, inter-evaluator reliability studies, framework peer review
Laboratories with measurement capability for neurological, physiological, and behavioral outcomes during simulation tasks are relevant for outcome research. Access to multiple simulation tiers within a single facility or research program would be particularly valuable.
Relevant for: Criterion validity studies, outcome measurement, pilot evaluation support
Organizations that operate simulation systems, motorsport programs, driving training facilities, rehabilitation centers, military simulation units, are relevant for pilot evaluations (Stage 2). Participation would involve providing architecture documentation and system access for evaluation purposes.
Relevant for: Stage 2 pilot evaluations, real-system evidence corpus
Programs studying simulation-based rehabilitation, neurological recovery, or therapeutic outcomes in populations with vestibular, neurological, or movement disorders are relevant for understanding how simulation fidelity affects outcomes in these specialized populations.
Relevant for: Specialized outcome research, medical risk validation, rehabilitation protocol development
Participation in future SFR research activities would take different forms depending on the organization type and the validation stage. The four types below describe what future participation might look like.
Simulation operators provide their system for evaluation under the SFR methodology. This means providing architecture documentation, actuator specifications, synchronization data, and access for telemetry measurement during reference motion events. The evaluation produces a classification record for the system.
Participation would be voluntary and subject to confidentiality arrangements. Classification results would be reported to the system operator and could be made public only with their consent. The primary purpose at Stage 2 is to build experience with real systems, not to create a public registry.
Trained evaluators from different organizations independently assess the same set of simulation systems following the SFR methodology. Their results are compared without prior coordination. This tests whether different evaluators, applying the same criteria to the same evidence, reach the same classification decisions.
Participation would require evaluators with sufficient familiarity with the SFR methodology to conduct independent assessments. A calibration process would precede the reliability study to ensure all evaluators understand the criteria the same way.
Research institutions design and conduct studies to test whether SFR classification tiers predict differences in training transfer, neurological adaptation, or human performance outcomes. This is independent research, the SFR framework does not direct or control the research design. Participating institutions develop their own research questions, methodologies, and analyses.
The value of this research is not dependent on the results confirming SFR's theoretical predictions. Research that finds no significant difference across classification tiers, or that identifies unexpected relationships, is equally important to the validation process as research that supports the framework's predictions.
The current community review process is open to all interested parties. Researchers, practitioners, engineers, and other stakeholders can submit structured feedback on the SFR framework through the community review process. This does not require any formal partnership, it is available now, at no cost, through the feedback submission process.
Substantive feedback from research institutions, particularly regarding how the criteria align with existing research findings, potential gaps in the framework's scientific basis, and suggestions for how criteria could be made more measurable, is particularly valuable at the current stage.
The following are research questions that the SFR framework was designed to support answering, but which have not yet been addressed. These are offered not as directives but as an honest account of where the framework's evidentiary basis is incomplete.
"Do participants trained on In-the-Loop classified systems demonstrate measurably better transfer to real-vehicle dynamic control tasks compared to participants trained on Surface-Level classified systems, when training content and duration are held constant?"
"Do simulation environments classified differently under SFR produce measurably different neurological adaptation patterns, in vestibular processing, predictive motor control, or sensorimotor integration, over repeated sessions?"
"When two or more trained evaluators independently apply the SFR methodology to the same simulation system using the same evidence package, to what degree do their criterion findings and classification results agree?"
"Do individuals with vestibular disorders, concussion history, or reduced neurological reserve respond differently to Surface-Level simulation compared to Out-of-the-Loop simulation, and do these differences have clinical significance for rehabilitation protocol design?"
"When Tier 3 or Tier 4 evidence is used in an evaluation in the absence of Tier 1 or Tier 2 evidence, how frequently does the resulting classification match the classification that would have been produced with higher-quality evidence on the same system?"
There is no active research partnership program at this time. If you are a researcher or institution interested in the framework and want to engage through community review, the processes below are available now.
The community review process is the current pathway for substantive engagement with the framework. Submit feedback, review open questions, and contribute to the development of the standard as it moves toward formal validation.
Community Review ProcessFor general inquiries about the framework, not partnership or program requests, use the contact page. Note that the framework has limited capacity to respond to partnership inquiries at this stage, as formal partnership infrastructure does not yet exist.