EUROP Position Paper (PDF) - EU-nited

EUROP Position Paper 

on the Green Paper of the European Commission 

“From Challenges to Opportunities: Towards a Common Strategic 

Framework for EU Research and Innovation Funding" 

Mai 2011 

EUROP – European Robotics Technology Platform 

c/o EUnited Robotics, Diamant Building, Boulevard A. Reyers 80, 1030 Brussels, Belgium 

Tel. + 32 2 706 82-22, Fax + 32 2 706 82-23

1. Introduction 

In February 2011, the European Commission presented a Green Paper on the 

organisation of research and innovation after the Seventh Framework Programme 

and officially launched a public consultation and discussion with stakeholders. 

In this position paper EUROP, as one of the 36 ETPs, presents its views and 

expectations regarding the Common Strategic Framework (CSF). The position 

paper is based on work developed over the past few years within the Platform as 

well as discussions within the working group sessions at the European Robotics 

Forum 2011, which was held from 6-8 April in Västerås / Sweden and brought 

together over 335 roboticists from all over Europe. The event provided an excellent 

opportunity to have some wide, membership based consultation that culminated 

into this position paper. 

Robotics, while not currently a major industry by itself, is a key enabler that 

underpins manufacturing competitiveness and is increasingly supporting the ability 

to find innovative solutions for many of the major societal challenges. In terms of 

manufacturing competitiveness, robotics uniquely underpins issues regarding 

flexibility, mass customisation, sustainable production, retention of employment 

(particularly when related to an aging population), automation within SMEs and 

new business model support. Outside of the factory service robots are enhancing 

service delivery efficiencies, providing solutions for many societal challenges (such 

as affordable healthcare). Therefore it is vital that Europe maintains a strong 

position in robotics technologies and robotics applications. 

2. Towards Innovation 

As an industrially led Platform, EUROP welcomes the shift of emphasis for the next 

Framework Programme from primary RTD focus to innovation. 

To reach this goal, industrial members wish to see more attention on market 

relevance, (expected) results, technology transfer to industry and economic impact 

of research projects during the whole funding process – starting from overall 

strategy and budget distribution, Work Programmes, calls and evaluation of project 

proposals and project evaluation. Industrial participation in the project and/or 

EUROP is enabled by euRobotics Action, funded by the European Commission within the 7th 

Framework Programme (FP7-ICT-244852; 01/2010 – 12/2012) 

http://www.eurobotics-project.eu 

page 1 of 13

industrial commitment will guarantee the market relevance of the research and the 

uptake of the results. Currently, the industrial participation in research projects 

funded by the European Commission lies at approximately 30 % - this needs to be 

enlarged, if industry benefit is to be derived from the research programme. 

From the robotics industry point of view many of the current academic led EU 

projects lack a realistic view of industrial needs and market relevance. While 

EUROP members acknowledge the importance of research excellence in order to 

extend the future knowledge base and capabilities, industrial members would be 

concerned if there were an emphasis on a science-oriented and long-term focus 

within the CSF robotics funding profile at the expense of actions aimed at more 

focussed industrially-driven research that will provide more immediate impact. 

SMEs in particular would welcome more market-oriented research, since SMEs – 

due to their financial and resource constraints - are only willing to invest money 

and time in research that is expected to pay-off in the short to medium term, which 

means will end up in products they can sell and/or use. Hence, the shift towards 

innovation will increase the participation of SMEs in the Framework Programme. 

3. Testing and validating research results 

The full innovation cycle (from research to market uptake) should be covered by 

the upcoming Common Strategic Framework Programme (CSF). Follow-up 

projects / funding might be necessary after the end of the research project before 

the innovation process is completed: testing / validating, linking to other initiatives 

(such as the lead-market initiative, and European Investment Bank loans), 

promoting and marketing of the technology readiness in general, covering 

legislative aspects, finding venture capital, market introduction, etc. 

Very often in robotics, many practical problems appear only during real-world 

experimentation. Through testing of research results and pilot projects in strategic 

areas, the researchers become aware of new problems they need to solve before 

the technology / product is fit for the market. Therefore, EUROP members are 

looking for more projects with applied research, including testing and validating 

research results in the real world. This will help bridging the “valley of death” 

between end of research and commercialisation. 




page 2 of 13

4. Including short-time, smaller-scale projects (“ECHORD”-type) 

EUROP members see the need for more smaller-scale and more agile projects. 

One model that can be built on within the CSF is the ECHORD experiments 

project. “ECHORD” (European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development, 

FP7-231143) is an integrating project aimed at strengthening the cooperation 

between scientific research and industry in robotics. In the context of ECHORD, 

small-scale projects, so-called “experiments” are conducted, which use state-of-the 

art robot equipment. Within ECHORD research institutes and industry are invited to 

carry out experiments which address specific challenges that industry is currently 

facing. Experiments have a limited time frame, a set financial budget, streamlined 

administrative requirements and most importantly, the processes for carrying out 

the experiments are simple and quick. From this innovative concept which focuses 

on Europe’s current industrial needs, EUROP anticipates exceptional knowledge 

transfer between industry and academia that will ultimately increase innovation and 

European competitiveness in the field. 

The European robotics community would appreciate the seamless continuation of 

ECHORD. 

The introduction of a new funding instrument in the Common Strategic Framework 

Programme, modeled after ECHORD’s design, would significantly facilitate the 

whole funding process of the small-scale experiments. It has been quite 

challenging for the ECHORD coordinator to start the first rounds of experiments 

due to the fact that the current project types and funding instruments (IP, STREPs, 

CSA) simply were not set up for small-scale experiments funded by the project 

itself. This has caused bureaucratic hurdles – which could be easily removed if the 

EC made provisions for this very promising new typed project in the future. 




page 3 of 13

5. Towards Simplification and Flexibility 

All EUROP members agree: the preparation and selection process needs to be 

simplified. It takes much too long from the moment a project idea is born until the 

project starts. 

In general, proposal writing is very time consuming, in particular if you take into 

account that the success rate of a submitted proposal lies only at 18 % (on 

average across all FP7 programmes). 

The industrial EUROP members look for more focused calls: the calls should be 

structured in relatively narrow industrially-relevant areas to prevent 

oversubscription. This would attract a higher percentage of industry participation, 

particularly SMEs, in the calls and would lower the application rate, which would 

also speed the evaluation process. EUROP therefore recommends having 

dedicated and focused calls for industry. 

A two-step approach could also simplify the process: 

Step 1: a short summary of the goals, planned approach, funds required, 

expected results and economic relevance, as well as a short description of 

the involved partners. In total 10 pages should suffice. 

Step 2: only for those project proposal that are positively reviewed, a 

detailed description of the work packages and deliverables should be 

elaborated. 

This would not only lessen the required efforts of proposers and reviewers, but - if 

managed properly – would also speed-up the evaluation process and lower the 

hurdles for participating in research funding, which would hence encourage new, 

innovative organisations and SMEs to participate in the Framework Programme. 

During the project run-time, the administrative burden needs to be lowered: 

Financial guidelines are too complicated and complex! On a national level. 

e.g. in Germany, they are much shorter and easier. 

Reporting and financial administration is too time consuming for both, 

involved project partners as well as project officers. The administrative 

burden should be lowered and moved towards a more result-oriented and 




page 4 of 13

trust-based partnership between the European Commission and industry. 

Bear in mind that industry, with the actual funding rate of 50%, also takes a 

risk and hence has an interest in getting results out of the research project. 

EUROP members also require more flexibility during the project run-time with 

regard to project objectives, budget distribution and even changes of project 

partnership. With the rate of technology change in robotics, quite a lot can change 

from project submission to project completion and it is important to ensure that 

innovation projects remain relevant and adapt to technology and market 

developments. 

6. Enhanced communication 

From EUROP’s point of view, enhanced communication is key for bringing the 

robotics industry forward! The robotics industry and many other sectors have 

described their vision and goals in detail in Strategic Research Agendas and are 

ready and willing, to tackle the identified challenges through enhanced 

communication and cooperation with the European Commission and other public 

funding bodies! Let’s start a regular dialogue between industry, academia, the 

European Commission and other funding bodies from the member states. It’s 

robotics in Europe that counts! 

Robotics research funding is fragmented within the EC. We have the following 

bodies dealing with robotics research: 

DG INFSO, Unit E5 – as main contact person for robotics 

DG INFSO, Directorate F – FET Flagship on Robotics 

DG INFSO, Directorate H – service robotics for elderly care 

DG INFSO, Directorate G (Factories of the Future PPP) 

DG Research, Directorate G (Factories of the Future PPP) 

All above mentioned Directorates / Units organise interesting events, hold 

consultation meetings with robotics stakeholders and conduct studies. It is hard for 

the robotics industry to keep track of all above mentioned initiatives, events and to 

maintain contact with all above mentioned directorates. 




page 5 of 13

EUROP’s industrial membership is mainly based on SMEs. Europe has only 

a few major key player robotics: KUKA, ABB AB Robotics, Comau, Reis and 

Güdel with around 1000 employees and hence the overall industry does not 

have enough manpower to participate in all consultation processes. 

EUROP and the robotics community suffer from this fragmentation. EUROP would 

appreciate if robotics-related research could be centralised in one Directorate only. 

The fragmentation of research might lead towards fragmentation of the robotics 

community. 

7. Enhancing competitiveness 

Robotics plays a key role for keeping production competitive and hence makes it 

attractive to invest in Europe: It is through robotics and automation that 

manufacturing companies can compensate the competitive disadvantage of higher 

labour costs in Europe and ultimately retain employment within Europe, albeit with 

different, and higher, skills requirements. Outside of factories service robots are 

transforming the operations of many sectors and dramatically increasing the 

productivity and competitiveness, from agriculture (e.g. milking robots) to energy 

(e.g. sub-sea robots). 

8. Tackling societal challenges 

Robotics is a key element for dealing with societal challenges Europe is 

facing: 

Creating an energy- and resource-efficient production 

Producing "green" products with economies of scale 

Creation and retention of equal-opportunity and high-quality employment 

Coping with an ageing work-force: keeping the ageing workforce with 

valuable work experience in the production process 

Providing solutions for elderly care 

Protection against external and internal threats to security 

Providing environmental monitoring 




page 6 of 13

Robotics can make valuable contributions to the grand societal challenges and 

looks forward to an even greater focus on societal challenges in the next 

Framework Programme. 

However, as mentioned already above: robotics as such is a relatively small 

industry and EUROP, compared to other ETPs, is not driven by big players. Hence, 

EUROP and the robotics industry cannot always keep in constant contact with the 

EC regarding the importance of robotics as bigger players do for their respective 

fields, e.g. IT industry, automobile industry, manufacturing industry. 

9. Recommendations 

In summary EUROP recommends the following: 

1. Increase industrial participation in the design of work programmes and 

calls 

Specific actions should include: 

Greater consultation between the ETP and EC regarding the content of 

calls, with specific consultation regarding innovations actions within each 

call 

Greater participation by European industry in the evaluation of industrially 

relevant call proposals 

2. Increased focus on actions that assist the transfer of ideas into real-world 

products and services 


Increased focus on market relevance of (expected) results, technology 

transfer to industry and economic impact of research projects during the 

whole evaluation process 




page 7 of 13

The inclusion of specific project actions including pilot plant and strategic 

demonstrator facilities, as well as smaller scale, short term projects such as 

those currently addressed within ECHORD. 

Greater integration of approach between Research and Innovation 

programmes and complementary actions such as Lead Market initiatives in 

terms of supported themes and strategic approach. 

Support for testing and validating of research results in industrial settings 

3. The procedures for administration and management of the calls and 

subsequent projects need to be streamlined 


The administrative burden of projects within the CSF need to be lowered, 

particularly for smaller scale projects 

A new funding instrument that allows for more innovative, smaller-scale 

projects (such as ECHOR- type projects) needs to be introduced 

Time-to-grant needs to be shortened significantly 

Project administration approaches needs to be adaptive to support 

appropriate flexibility within running projects 

Introductions of 2 step-calls should be considered where these can be 

implemented in a light and agile manner 

4. SME Involvement needs to be broadened 


Focus on shorter term, more industrially oriented calls 

Consideration should be given to the definition of SME and / or specific 

actions / support to encourage participation from mid-capitalisation 

companies 




page 8 of 13

5. Establish a central point of contact for robotics within the CSF 

As a minimum this should be a single identified point that would handle all 

consultation inputs from the industry and be a source of information for 

robotics related calls 

6. Actions to move best practice from leading edge companies to the much 

larger number of smaller manufacturing companies and thereby raising 

European competitiveness 

Greater emphasis on dissemination actions that increase the outreach of 

robotics technologies to new application areas and industries, e.g. through 

the use of trade bodies, locals national and regional networks. 




page 9 of 13

ANNEXES 

1. About EUROP 

EUROP, the European Robotics Technology Platform, is one of several ETPs 

(European Technology Platforms) initiated by the European Commission during the 

6 th Framework Programme. EUROP was founded in 2005 as an industry-led 

voluntary network of stakeholders of robotics in Europe. Two SRAs were 

developed – the latest version was presented in July 2009. Since then, EUROP 

has worked on implementation of the SRA (e.g. through the ECHORD project, 

contribution to the roadmap of the Factories of the Future Public Private 

Partnership, representation in the “Ad-Hoc Industrial Advisory Group for Factories 

of the Future”, Manufuture/EFFRA, Fet Flagship Proposal on Robotics). Together 

with its academic sister network EURON, EUROP has been lately concentrated on 

on improving communication between industry and academia and the promotion of 

European robotics. 

As of today, EUROP brings together 140 members and cooperation partners, of 

which 67 are industrial organizations (of which 53 are SMEs) and 44 are 

universities / research centres. 

Members’ interest is evenly distributed among the five different robotics fields 

(industrial, domestic service, professional service, space and security robotics) 

which underlines the fact that challenges, technologies and research needs are the 

same for all robotics domains. 

EUROP is currently supported through the euRobotics Coordination funded by the 

European Commission under the 7 th Framework Programme. 




page 10 of 13

2. Robotics in Europe - a short introduction 

2.1 The robotics market – some figures: 

Worldwide in 2010, around 115,000 industrial robots were sold with a value of 

6.2 billion €. Including associated systems, the turnover of the robotics industries 

were almost 20 billion €. 

The robotics industry was hit severely by the worldwide economic and financial 

crisis: Compared to 2008, considered one of the most successful years, 2009 had 

a decline of 47% (60,000 units). This is the lowest level reported since 1994! In 

Europe, sales dropped by 41%. Asia had to cope with a decline of 50%. 

Fortunately, the robotics industry is back on a growing path: IFR predicted growth 

rates of approximately 10% in 2011 and 2012 for industrial robotics. This 

The European robotics industry is in general very well positioned. In the past years 

it has gradually reduced its dependence on the automotive industry and its 

subcontractors, and has systematically opened up and expanded new fields of 

application for robots (e.g. rubber and plastics industry, metal and machine 

industry, electronics, food and beverage). In 2010, both the automotive industry as 

well as the non-automotive sectors made large investments to optimize their 

production processes: 30,000 industrial robots were sold in Europe, 45% more 

than in 2009. This is still about 15% lower than the peak levels of 2007 and 2008, 

but growth rates are predicted. 

In the last 10 years, encouraging signals have come from the service robotics 

field. A service robot is used foremost outside the manufacturing field and semi or 

fully autonomously provides services to humans. A service robot is usually mobile, 

flexible, easy to handle and requires a much closer interaction with humans. A 

number of service robots are already successfully operating in the professional 

sector, such as medical, logistics and food, as well as in domestic settings for tasks 

related to house- and garden keeping. 

The statistics divide service robotics in two main categories: 

Professional service robots: These are high valuable high tech products like 

field robots, milking robots, security robots 




page 11 of 13

Domestic/personal service robots: mass products, low-priced like toy robots 

Compared with the operational stock of industrial robots (which is more than one 

million), a rather low number of professional service robot units is on the market. 

But the potential is tremendous! 

According to figures from the IFR Statistical Department in 2009, about 12.900 

service robots were put into operation for professional applications (80% of them in 

the categories “field robotics” and “defence, rescue and security”) and in the years 

2010 – 2013 another 80,000 with a value of 12 billion US $ shall follow. 

Figures from the service robots for personal/domestic are higher: in 2009 

almost 1 million robots for domestic tasks were sold (vacuuming, floor cleaners, 

lawn mowers, pool cleaners and robot companions): In the years 2010 – 2013 11 

million more should follow with an estimated market value of 1,2 billion €. 

2.1. Outlook for robotics in Europe: 

In the field of industrial robotics, competition is growing; but Europe can keep up 

with Japan, which is seen as technology leader in the area. Japan’s strong position 

is mainly based on the massive investments in research and development resulting 

in a high degree of innovation. Rising competition from China or South Korea 

further prompts their efforts in future innovation which can be instrumental in 

increasing productivity and enhancing the quality of their products. A big advantage 

for the Japanese industrial robot manufacturers is the nearness of important 

robotic components manufacturers, such as gears and motors (approximately 90% 

of all gears for robotics originate from Japan). 

In the field of service robotics Europe has very good chances of not only 

developing a technology here, but also of bringing it to the level of market 

readiness and of backing it up with practicable business models. There are already 

promising new prototypes / research platforms available! However, the price/value 

ratio of technologies has to decrease significantly before these products can enter 

the market, in particular in the low-end market segment. The high –end market 

segment, in particular the field and security categories are maturing very quickly 

and interesting research and demonstrators platforms are progressing, but this 

market segment is also suffering a strong competition from US and Israel in 

particular. 




page 12 of 13

A big major advantage for Europe and much envied by other robotics community is 

the following: 

Very good conditions through the excellent R&D Infrastructure (over 200 

research institutes and universities dealing with subjects relevant to 

robotics) 

Networks, such as EUROP and EURON to bring together the main 

stakeholders in the R&D field; development of the EUROP SRA 

High level of funding; 400 Million € in the years 2007 – 2010 from the EC 

Successful European research projects such as SMErobot, ECHORD… 

Contact: 

EUROP Secretariat, 

c/o EUnited Robotics – European Robotics Association 

Boulevard A. Reyers 80 

BE-1030 Brussels 

Tel: +32 2 706 8222 

Email: anne.wendel@eu-nited.net 




page 13 of 13

EUROP Position Paper (PDF) - EU-nited

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?