Scientific track
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Introduction | Subject areas | Paper preparation | Submission & important dates
INTRODUCTION
On behalf of the ERF Programme Committee and the ERF Scientific Board, we invite you to contribute to the 17th edition of the European Robotics Forum, to be held from 23-27 March 2026 in Stavanger, Norway.
We are looking forward to your contribution to the ERF 2026
Dr. Nabil Belbachir
Dr. Gabor Sziebig
Prof. Eleni Kelasidi
The European Robotics Forum is the most influential meeting of the robotics community in Europe, spanning academia, industry and society. It aims to foster communication and knowledge transfer and covers technology, application and impact of robotics. The ERF provides a podium to discuss recent and future advances in robotics in context of applications, societal impact, ethical and legal considerations. Robotics includes aspects such as mechatronics, control, perception, and cognition, as well as current themes like AI and data in relation to robotics.
Research on the applications of Robotics and AI to the industrial scenario is leading to a very fast-growing innovation in Europe. Thus, it is more and more important to foster discussion between researchers and industry to create a synergy that will drive the future of research and industrial innovation.
At the ERF 2025 in Rimini, Italy, an industrial scientific track for strengthening the scientific component of ERF was introduced. Thanks to the success of the scientific track both in 2024 and 2025, it will be continued at ERF 2026.
The scientific track is composed of peer-reviewed papers, which will subsequently be published in a Springer book. To foster the discussion between researcher and industry, the contributions of the scientific track will be presented in an “oral” or a “pitch and poster” format, depending on the content of the paper.
Subject Areas of the Scientific Track
Robotics Subject Area
This subject area focuses on ocean and space robotics topics, including but not limited to:
- Modeling, control and estimation of marine and space systems
- Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)
- Path planning and collision avoidance
- Situational awareness for autonomous robotic systems
- Autonomous Inspection, Maintenance and Repair Operations
- Robotic manipulation and control
- Sensor integration and perception
- Robust localization in uncertain and dynamic environments
- Human-robot interaction
- Collaborative Robotics
- Robotic platforms and systems for Ocean and Space applications
- Robot kinematics and dynamics
- Mechatronics designs for marine and space systems
- Tools and methods for intervention and repair operations
- Soft robotics
- Safety and standardization
- Application domains like ocean and space, maintenance and inspection, maritime, aquaculture, just to name a few.
AI for Robotics Subject Area
This subject area addresses AI solutions specifically designed for ocean and space robotics applications, covering areas such as:
- Machine learning and deep learning for robotics
- Foundation models and generative AI for robotics
- Autonomous decision making and planning
- Computer vision and image processing
- Natural language processing for robotics
- Reinforcement learning and adaptive systems
- AI-driven robot collaboration and coordination
- Dependable and safe AI systems
- Hybrid and informed AI for robotics
Paper Preparation
We invite you to submit contributions (maximum 6 pages including references, single-column, in PDF format). Contributions must be assigned to one subject area during submission. Please be aware that the ERF Scientific Board reserves the right to assign accepted contributions to another subject area if this seems to fit better content-wise.
Contributions will be peer-reviewed in single-blind fashion. Accepted contributions will be published in the indexed Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics (SPAR) with Series Editors: Bruno Siciliano, Oussama Khatib.
Please prepare your contribution in standard Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics (SPAR) format, which is available at this link with the Latex and Word templates. The authors’ guidelines for the preparation of contributions come with templates.
Submission and Important Dates
Contributions for the Scientific Track can be submitted here (registration on Microsoft CMT necessary)
- Deadline for contribution submission: 30 October 2025 (11:59 PM CET)
- Notification of Acceptance: 15 December 2025
- Final Submission: 15 January 2026
The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.