Exo-biote : image représentant un robot mou en forme de spirale copyright Jonathan Pêpe

Research programme

Organic robotics

Managed by

Financed by

Operated by

PEPR O2R


7 challenges on major societal issues

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Building a research ecosystem to tackle the 7 basic research challenges of the PEPR O2R

As part of the France 2030 national strategy, the exploratory research programme aims to strengthen French research and consolidate its leadership. It is in this context that the Organic robotics exploratory research programme has been funded to support exploration of these emerging research topics.

Robotics has been a source of innovation for production, logistics, intervention, exploration, and healthcare systems. However, despite immense technological progress, questions and problems remain regarding the integration of robots into our lives and society. Their design and development, based on engineering techniques that emerged during the industrial revolution, no longer always meet the needs raised by ever-changing uses. They remain essentially disconnected from new societal challenges related to humans and the environment.

The Organic robotics research programme aims to develop robotics that is socially adapted in terms of its principles, behavior, performance, and uses, and open to the complexity of societal challenges. This exploratory research programme will be based on a multidisciplinary approach integrating the social sciences and humanities, digital sciences, and engineering sciences.

Key figures

34 M€

Budget

7

projects funded

70

PhD students

50

post-docs and engineers

3

demonstrators

2

call for projects
of 4M €

100

researchers, research professor permanent staff involved

News & Events


Keep up with latest news and events

 Group-Robot Interaction in the Wild
  • News
  • Project
Group-Robot Interaction in the Wild
Elisabetta Zibetti, Raphael Lorenzo, Joffrey Becker, Bertrand Luvison and Serena Ivaldi, HSS and robotics members of the AS3 project, with the help of Julien Wacquez and Fabio Amadio, are working on how groups (vs. individuals) engage with a service robot in the real world. Their research has been published in the HRI Companion ’26.
12 June 2026
 8th workshop “The soft, the hard & the weird”
  • Seminars
  • Programme activities
8th workshop “The soft, the hard & the weird”
The 2nd masterclass of the Speculative Exploration Workshops on May 18-19-20, 2026 was organised by the House for potential humanities in partnership with MSH Mondes, to explore robotics in symbiosis with living things, from a solarpunk and permacomputing perspective.
28 May 2026
 “Do robots have a race problem?”
  • News
  • Project
“Do robots have a race problem?”
Lionel Obadia, member of AS3 “Decision, learning and social interaction”, as well as international scholars in robotics have been interviewed about new studies suggesting that people project human racial biases onto the humanoid robots.
26 May 2026

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