Yesterday, R3GROUP co-organised Workshop #18 at the European Robotics Forum (ERF) 2026, held in Stavanger, Norway. Under the title “Who’s Guiding Whom? Human-in-the-Loop AI for Reconfigurable Systems”, the session brought together researchers, industry partners, and manufacturing practitioners to explore how AI and human expertise can work in tandem to support adaptable, skill-based production systems.
The workshop was a joint initiative between R3GROUP and the RaRe² project, both funded under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme. It opened with an impulse talk by Akkaladevi Sharath Chandra (PROFACTOR GmbH), who presented the shared vision behind the two projects and framed the key questions of the session. Speakers Leire Bastida (Tecnalia), Wael Mohammed (Tampere University), and Dominik Mittel (Fortiss) then contributed their perspectives on multi-modal guidance systems, intuitive interfaces, and skill-based adaptation in real manufacturing environments.
The second part of the session took the form of a World Café, facilitated by Mayte Carracedo from FundingBox. Participants worked across thematic tables to identify synergies, open challenges, and opportunities for future collaboration — including early ideas for a potential follow-up project that would build on the results and communities generated by R3GROUP and RaRe².
The workshop drew a strong audience and closed with a group photo that reflected the breadth of the community gathered: researchers, engineers, project partners, and practitioners from across Europe, all united by a shared interest in making manufacturing more resilient, human-centred, and intelligent.
R3GROUP’s presence at ERF 2026 is part of the project’s ongoing commitment to community building and knowledge exchange as it moves towards its final phase.
