Robotics

The importance of robotics lies in its wide-ranging impact on Europe's capacity to maintain and expand a competitive manufacturing sector with millions of related jobs at stake. Robotics also offers new solutions to societal challenges from ageing to health, smart transport, security, energy and environment.

The European Commission's focus is on building on our continuous effort to develop a strong scientific base for pushing the limits of the technology, and exploiting such results in real world applications.

Why fund robotics research & innovation?

• Essential for productivity and competitiveness
• Reindustrialisation, ageing workforce
• Essential to address societal challenges
• Health, ageing population, environment, security
• Growth potential
• Service markets, double-digit growth
• Autonomous systems transforming ICT, automotive and other sectors
• Key driver of digital innovation

Robotics is a fast developing market increasingly driven by the development of novel and improved products in areas as diverse as manufacturing, search, rescue and retrieval, inspection and monitoring, surgery and healthcare, homes and cars, transport and logistics, agriculture, and many more.

The rapid increase in the use of robots in our homes and at work, in hospitals and industrial environments provides an inspiring vision about how they can benefit society as a whole. And, how priorities to stimulate robotics should be defined at this point in their evolution, to best develop the potential for growth, jobs and innovation in Europe.

European Action

Through a portfolio of over 120 research projects and coordination actions, the European Commission has progressively built up a solid base of knowledge-sharing and cooperation across the entire robotics stakeholder community. This base now includes a public-private-partnership on robotics called SPARC.

This work is undertaken in close collaboration with the robotics community, including Member States programmes, industry, universities and research institutions.