Tag: Social Robotics

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ICSR + Art 2026: Programme Highlights

The 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Art 2026) will take place in London, UK, from 1–4 July 2026. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. The preliminary programme, now available, offers four days of scientific exchange, artistic exploration, and community building, featuring keynote lectures, paper presentations, special sessions, workshops, debates, a Grand Challenge, exhibitions, and a variety of networking opportunities. Reflecting the conference theme ICSR + Art, the programme highlights the growing intersections between social robotics and creative practice through events such as the Robot Fringe Festival, the Rising Stars in Social Robotics event, the premiere performance of Quantwin by Silke Grabinger, the 1001 Nights with Robots Show, Argos, and the Robot Fashion Show, while also covering the full breadth of contemporary social robotics research. Participants will have opportunities to engage with leading experts from academia, industry, healthcare, design, the arts, and other fields. Full details of the programme are available at icsr2026.uk/programme/.

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ICSR Grand Challenge Finalists Announced

The 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Art 2026) will take place in London, UK, from 1–4 July 2026. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. The finalists of the ICSR 2026 Grand Challenge have now been announced, showcasing an exciting and diverse range of innovative projects from researchers, artists, and interdisciplinary teams across the globe. This year’s finalists represent institutions from Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia, reflecting the international and creative spirit of the competition. The selected teams will present their work during the first day of the conference on 1 July 2026, with the results and awards to be announced on 3 July 2026. Finalists will also have the optional opportunity to demonstrate their projects during the conference. To support participation in the competition, ICSR offers a special reduced registration rate through the Grand Challenge Competition Finalists Pass, which grants access to the full conference; at least one registration per team is required, and each attendee must hold an individual registration. Further details regarding presentations and demonstrations will be communicated directly to finalists via email. For questions related to the ICSR Grand Challenge, participants may contact Prof. Laura Fiorini at laura.fiorini@unifi.it. A full list of finalists and additional information can be found at: icsr2026.uk/competition-finalists/.

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There’s No Place Like Home

The 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Art 2026) will take place in London, UK, from 1–4 July 2026. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. As part of the conference programme, ICSR Industry Day will offer a dynamic platform connecting research and industry through a panel debate, a UKRI-led workshop, and a pitch session showcasing emerging robotics start-ups. A key highlight will be the panel discussion “There’s No Place Like Home: Exploring the Next Frontier for Social Robots”, taking place on Friday, 3 July from 2.30-4.00 pm. Bringing together leading voices from industry, the session will examine the growing interest in domestic environments as the next major market for social robotics. While companies increasingly envision robots supporting household tasks, personalised assistance, ageing-in-place, and companionship, the home presents unique challenges as a deeply personal and unpredictable setting where trust, privacy, and reliability are essential. Drawing on firsthand experience in deploying consumer robots, the panellists will discuss both the opportunities and the obstacles of integrating robots into everyday domestic life, addressing issues such as surveillance, dependency, social acceptance, and design limitations. The panel will feature Ira Renfrew, Co-Founder and Chief People Product Officer at Familiar Machines & Magic; Shunsuke Aoki, Founder of Yukai Engineering; Craig Allen, former Chief Creative Officer at Embodied (now Moxie Robots); and Samuel Ader, VP Growth & Supply at Cera (Genie Connect). The discussion will be moderated by Elizabeth Jochum. Together, the speakers will explore how thoughtful, human-centred innovation can help social robots earn a meaningful place in people’s homes and daily lives. Further information and registration details for the Industry Day panel are available at: icsr2026.uk/industry-day/.

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Keynote Speakers of ICSR + Art 2026

The 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Art 2026) will take place in London, UK, from 1–4 July 2026. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. This year’s conference will feature three distinguished keynote speakers whose work is shaping the future of artificial intelligence, robotics, and human-robot interaction. Hatice Gunes, Professor of Affective Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Cambridge, is internationally recognised for her pioneering research on affective computing, multimodal intelligence, and socially aware AI systems, with a strong emphasis on ethics, fairness, and wellbeing in robotics. Jean Oh, Associate Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Director of the roBot Intelligence Group, is known for her work on collaborative robots, social navigation, and creative physical AI, focusing on developing robots that learn, adapt, and work safely alongside humans in shared environments. Nicolas Heess, Research Scientist and Director at Google DeepMind, leads cutting-edge research on general-purpose robotics and embodied AI, exploring how advances in machine learning, perception, and motor control can bring intelligent robots into the physical world. Together, these keynote speakers represent the forefront of research and innovation driving the next generation of social robotics. Further information on the keynote programme is available at: icsr2026.uk/keynote/.

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Robophilosophy 2026 Now Open for Registration

The Robophilosophy Conference 2026 (RP2026), titled “Connected Futures – Nature, Robots, and Society”, will take place August 11-14, 2026, in Dublin, Ireland, bringing together researchers from across disciplines to examine how robotics and artificial intelligence are reshaping human societies and the natural world. As robotic systems become increasingly embedded in everyday life, the conference aims to foster dialogue between fields ranging from social robotics, computer science, and human-robot interaction to the humanities, social sciences, law, economics, and environmental research. Central questions include how robotic technologies can uphold human dignity and social justice, how legal systems must adapt to autonomous decision-making, and whether robots can contribute to sustainability rather than accelerate ecological decline. The event marks the seventh installment in the Robophilosophy conference series and features plenary speakers such as Lynne Baillie, Ryan Calo, Hideki Kajima, Arno Klein, Bertram Malle, and Shannon Vallor. Importantly, the submission deadline for research papers, posters, and artistic contributions has been extended to March 15, 2026, offering additional time for scholars and practitioners to contribute to this interdisciplinary conversation. Registration is now open, and further details are available at www.rp2026.org.

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Guest Lecture by Luca M. Leisten

The elective module “Soziale Roboter” by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel will be held again from March 30 to April 1, 2026, at FHNW in Olten. It is primarily aimed at prospective business AI students, but students of information systems can also take part. Luca Marie Leisten has been invited as a guest speaker.  She is a third-year doctoral student in learning sciences and human-robot interaction at ETHZ and EPFL. With a background in psychology and social sciences, Luca’s research focuses on social robot companions in the learning domain. Specifically, she is interested in investigating the barriers and opportunities of social robot deployment as well as the perception of different robots. In this context, Luca is testing the long-term effects of affordable DIY robotic toolkits using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Unitree Go2, Alpha Mini, Cozmo, Vector, AIBI, Eilik, Furby, Booboo, and Hugvie from Oliver Bendel’s private Social Robots Lab will also be on site. Social Robotics Girl, a so-called GPT specializing in this topic, will be available as a tutor throughout the event. Key works include “Soziale Roboter” (2021) and “300 Keywords Soziale Robotik” (2021). At the end of the elective module, students design social robots – also with the help of generative AI – that they find useful, meaningful, or simply attractive. The elective module has been offered since 2021 and is very popular at the university.

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Final Call for ICSR + Art 2026

The 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Art 2026) will take place in London, UK, from 1–4 July 2026. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. For its 18th edition, the conference will present the special theme ICSR + Art, highlighting how robots can move beyond their conventional roles to become tools, partners, and co-creators within artistic and creative practices. At the same time, the conference remains open to the full breadth of social robotics research, including human–robot interaction, medical and assistive robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, ethics, design, education, and cultural applications. Accepted papers will be published in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series and indexed in major academic databases. Due to current extenuating circumstances worldwide and following requests from several authors, the submission deadlines have been extended by a few additional days to allow additional time for final submissions. No further extensions of the submission deadlines are planned, and all submissions must follow the updated schedule. All deadlines are based on Anywhere on Earth (AoE) time. Authors who have already submitted a paper may use the extension to update their submission; if any difficulty occurs when modifying the existing entry in the system, the previous submission may be withdrawn and replaced with a new version. Updated dates are available at icsr2026.uk/dates/ and submission instructions can be found at icsr2026.uk/submission/ (Photo: stevecadman/CC BY-SA 2.0).

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Deadlines Extended for ICSR + Art 2026

The 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR + Art 2026) will take place in London, UK, from 1-4 July 2026. ICSR is the leading international forum that brings together researchers, academics, and industry professionals from across disciplines to advance the field of social robotics. For its 18th edition, the conference will present the special theme ICSR + Art, highlighting how robots can move beyond their conventional roles to become tools, partners, and co-creators within artistic and creative practices. At the same time, the conference remains open to the full breadth of social robotics research, including human-robot interaction, medical and assistive robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, ethics, design, education, and cultural applications. Accepted papers will be published in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series and indexed in major academic databases. The conference programme will encompass regular papers, short papers, special sessions, a design and art competition, debates, the Robot Fringe live performance strand, and an Industry Day dedicated to emerging robotics and technology companies. Regular Papers for the main track must follow the submission guidelines provided on the conference website and be submitted via the Springer Meteor system by 6 March 2026. Contributions to Special Sessions should likewise follow the Regular Paper instructions and be submitted to the respective session. Short Papers must comply with the specific Short Paper guidelines and be submitted accordingly. The ICSR Design / Art Competition, proposals for debates, and submissions for the Robot Fringe live robotic performance programme are due by 15 March 2026. Early-stage robotics and technology companies wishing to showcase their work at the Industry Day may apply until 15 May 2026. Further details, submission instructions, and relevant links are available at icsr2026.uk.

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Social Robots at Campus Brugg-Windisch

The elective module “Soziale Roboter aus technischer, wirtschaftlicher und ethischer Sicht” (“Social robots from a technical, economic, and ethical perspective”) by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel will be held again from February 12 to 14, 2026 at the FHNW in Brugg-Windisch. It is primarily aimed at aspiring business economists, but prospective information systems specialists can also take part. Dr. Amol Deshmukh has been invited again as a guest speaker. He previously worked for the University of Glasgow and now conducts research at ETH Zurich. In his lecture, he will present the findings from his paper “Leveraging Social Robots to Promote Hand Hygiene: A Cross-Cultural and Socio-Economic Study of Children in Diverse School Settings”. Unitree Go2, Alpha Mini, Cozmo, Vector, Aibi, Furby, and Booboo from Oliver Bendel’s private Social Robots Lab will also be on site. Social Robotics Girl, a so-called GPT who specializes in this topic, will be available as a tutor throughout the event. Basic works are “Soziale Roboter” (2021) and “300 Keywords Soziale Robotik” (2021). At the end of the elective module, students design social robots – also with the help of generative AI – that they find useful, meaningful, or simply attractive. The elective modules have been offered since 2021 and are very popular.

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Talking to a Robot

The article “Small Talk with a Robot Reduces Stress and Improves Mood” by Katharina Kühne, Antonia L. Z. Klöffel, Oliver Bendel, and Martin H. Fischer was published on December 23, 2025. It is part of the volume “Social Robotics + AI: 17th International Conference, ICSR+AI 2025, Naples, Italy, September 10–12, 2025, Proceedings, Part III.” From the abstract: “Research has demonstrated that social support is crucial in mitigating stress and enhancing mood. Not only do long-term, meaningful relationships contribute to well-being, but everyday social interactions, such as small talk, also offer psychological benefits. As social robots increasingly become more integrated into daily life, they present a potential avenue for stress interventions. In our online study, 98 participants underwent a stress induction using the Stroop task and were then assigned to one of three conditions: engaging in scripted small talk with a simulated NAO robot online, listening to a neutral story told by the same NAO robot, or no intervention (control condition). Results indicate that both interventions effectively reduced stress, with a tendency towards a stronger effect in the Small talk condition. Small talk not only helped maintain positive affect but also reduced negative affect. Notably, the benefits were more pronounced among individuals experiencing higher acute stress following the stress induction, but were less evident in those with chronically elevated stress levels. Furthermore, the effect of the intervention on stress reduction was mediated by changes in positive affect. These findings suggest that small talk with a social robot may serve as a promising tool for stress reduction and affect regulation.” The first author, a researcher from the University of Potsdam, presented the paper on September 12, 2025, in Naples. It can be downloaded from link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-95-2398-6_1.