REELER is a new H2020 project funded by the European Commission with 1,998,265 EUR from the 1st of January, 2017 – 31st of December 2019. Its main objective is to develop the REELER Roadmap for responsible and ethical learning in robotics.

Interdisciplinary research
REELER is a highly interdisciplinary project involving 4 European partners from the fields of anthropology, learning, robotics, philosophy, and economy:
Coordinator Cathrine Hasse, Aarhus University, Denmark
Partner Maria Bulgheroni, Ab.Acus. srl, Italy
Partner Kathleen Richardson, De Montfort University, United Kingdom
Partner, Andreas Pyka, Hohenheim University.

The project is a research-driven collaboration between SSH-RRI and Robotic-ICT communities, which aims to raise awareness of the human potential in robotics development, with special attention to distributed responsibility, ethical and societal issues and collaborative learning. REELER’s high level of multidisciplinarity will assure cooperation, comprehension and acceptance of SSH-research in the robotics research community.

Main objective
The project aims at aligning roboticists’ visions of a future with robots with empirically-based
knowledge of human needs and societal concerns through a new proximity-based human-machine
ethics that take into account how individuals and community connect with robot technologies.

The main outcome of REELER is a research-based roadmap presenting:
a) ethical guidelines for Human Proximity Levels,
b) prescriptions for how to include the voice of new types of users and affected stakeholders through
Mini-Publics,
c) assumptions in robotics through socio-drama
d) agent-based simulations of the REELER research for policymaking.

At the core of these guidelines is the concept of collaborative learning, which permeates all aspects of
REELER and will guide future SSH-ICT research.

Impact
Integrating the recommendations of the REELER Roadmap for responsible and ethical learning in robotics in future robot design processes will enable the European robotics community to address human needs and societal concerns. Moreover, the project will produce powerful instruments able to foster networking and exploit potentialities of future robotics projects.