Robotics in the European Commission an overview Juha Heikkil Head - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Robotics in the European Commission – an overview

Juha Heikkilä – Head of Unit A2, DG Connect Björn Juretzki – Policy Officer Unit A2

Why are robots important?

• In a globalised economy, Europe cannot

compete on labour costs

• To address societal challenges, e.g. health,

environment and demographic change leading to a shrinking work force in Europe

• The future of manufacturing is the whole

manufacturing system working in concert (Industry 4.0)

Intelligent robots are crucial for Europe's future competitiveness!

Support to European robotics so far

• Almost 100 ongoing projects
• over 700 partners
• over €500m funding in the Seventh

Framework Programme for Research & Development

• €70m–€80m funding for new projects per year

(about 20 new projects every year)

• 1 call per year, up to 200 proposals
• Covering all application domains from industrial

robotics to healthcare to agriculture

Future support and Public-Private Partnership in Robotics (SPARC)

• Purpose of PPP: developing a strategy and vision for

the future of European robotics together with stakeholders

• Investment: €700 million public investment (biggest

civilian robotics programme in the world) complemented by €2.1bn private investment

• Overall goal: increasing the market share of

European robotics producers from currently 35% to 42% by 2020

• PPP up and running: first calls developed in

collaboration with private side already implemented

Legal issues

• We will only reach our ambitious goals, e.g. with

respect to market shares, when we also address the non-technical issues

• Legal issues high on the agenda, four main

thrusts:

• Data protection (robots equipped with sensors gather a

lot of data, consent from workers on the shop floor)

• Liability (what happens when an autonomous cars

causes an accident)

• Health and Safety (collaborative robots outside the cage)
• Sector-specific rules (drones/integration in airspace,

autonomous cars/Vienna Convention)

Robotics and the labour market

• Effects on labour market hotly debated
• Tentative evidence that robots create jobs and don't

destroy them:

• EC-commissioned Fraunhofer study: companies that use

robots are less likely to offshore production to outside Europe

• If the past is any indicator, no need for overblown

worries: industrialization created millions of jobs

• Example of app economy: did not exist 7 years ago, now

annual revenues of around $100bn

• Re-skilling of workforce needed
• We should look with optimism to the future!

Societal aspects/EB survey

• Societal concerns have to be taken seriously
• Key results of recent Eurobarometer survey on

autonomous systems:

• 89% of respondents consider robotics a

technology that requires careful management

• 70% of respondents think robots steal people's

jobs (unchanged compared to 2012 wave)

• 64% of respondents have a positive view of robots

(down from 70% in 2012)

• 85% of respondents agree that robots can do jobs

that are too hard/dangerous for people