Workshops

Workshops:

*Several workshops are accepting submissions. Refer to their websites below.

WS01: Secondary Motion Fashion Show

Organisers:

Heather Knight, Fernando Orellana & Kiren Passi

Description:

This first-of-its-kind workshop explores secondary motion—the delayed, reactive, physics-driven movement that follows a robot’s primary action—as a new form of robot fashion and expressive design. Rather than dressing robots in anthropomorphic clothing, participants create kinetic contraptions that flutter, bounce, sway, rattle, shimmer, or oscillate in response to quadruped behaviors. Workshop outcomes will be presented in a Secondary Motion Robot Fashion Show during the main ICSR conference program.

The motivation of workshop is to blend research and creativity to investigate:

  • How secondary motion can communicate attitude, personality, or intent.
  • How kinetic contraptions can serve as rapid prototypes for expressive behaviors.
  • How design and artistic practices (fashion, theatre, sculpture) can enrich social robotics.
  • How quadruped platforms can become expressive, non-human “performers.”

Contact: heather.knight@oregonstate.edu

Website: https://smfs.union.edu/

Date: 1 Jul 2026

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 1

WS02: Drawing in Diversity

Organisers:

Katie Seaborn, Özge Nilay Yalçın, Yijia Wang, Martina De Cet, Shruti Chandra & Mohammad Obaid

Description:

Diversity and representativeness are crucial elements in depictions of human-robot interactions (HRI). At present, there is no standard or open resource that provides the wealth of visual material needed to represent the breadth of HRI engagements, users, robots, embodiments, scenarios, contexts of use, or application domains. In this half-day workshop, we aim to identify critical elements and sketch out possibilities, co-creating a wishlist for pictures and baseline meta-materials to be formalized into an open science resource. The format will be creation-focused, with tangible contributions produced by all attendees. No drawing skills required.

Contact: kas214@cam.ac.uk

Website: https://aspirelab.io/drawinghri26/

Date: 1 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 2

WS03: 2nd Workshop on Cognitive Load and Engagement in Human-Robot Collaboration: From Robots in Hazardous Environments to Educational Applications

Organisers:

Adriana Tapus, Xiaoxuan Hei, Juan Jose Garcia Cardenas & Cristian Cringasu

Description:

As social robots become part of everyday life, understanding how they influence users’ cognitive load and engagement is increasingly important. This workshop explores the dynamic relationship between mental effort, attention, and engagement in human–robot interaction. We focus on how robot behavior, embodiment, communication style, and task design shape users’ cognitive experience and sustained involvement over time. Bringing together researchers from social robotics, HCI, cognitive science, and psychology, the workshop aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion and advance design principles for engaging, trustworthy, and cognitively sustainable human–robot interactions.

Contact: xiaoxuan.hei@ensta.fr

Website: https://perso.ensta.fr/~hei/ICSRWS2026/

Date: 1 Jul 2026

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 2

WS04: The Mechanics of Ensoulment: How Control Mappings Animate Social Robots

Organisers:

Edwin Dertien, Nefeli Kousi, Maaike Bleeker, Mike E.U. Ligthart & Laura Karreman

Descrpition:

This workshop examines how different control interfaces influence a robot’s expressive and social qualities, bridging engineering practice with embodied and performative perspectives. Building on artistic methodologies from puppetry, choreography, and performance studies developed within the Dramaturgy for Devices consortium, it investigates expressive movement and co-presence through live manipulation and theatrical techniques. Participants will work with robots through contrasting interfaces, ranging from direct puppeteering-style controls to standard “engineering” velocity or position mappings, to explore how embodiment, timing, and mediation shape robot expression. Through hands-on use of diverse hardware (game controllers, MIDI devices, joysticks) and multiple control strategies (1:1 joint control, velocity-based control, mediated or filtered mappings, grouped or high-level mappings, gestural input), participants will carry out short performative tasks that expose how each mapping produces different expressive qualities. The session encourages reflection on how control strategies guide the emergence of presence and relational meaning in social robots. It invites researchers, designers, and artists to compare approaches to expressive control, develop shared frameworks for describing mapping strategies, and identify potential applications in their own research or practice. Outcomes include a qualitative dataset of participant mappings and impressions, and an emerging vocabulary for describing embodied control in social robotics.

Contact: n.i.kousi@utwente.nl

Website: https://dramaturgy4devices.sites.uu.nl/2025/12/16/icsr-workshop-the-mechanics-of-ensoulment/

Date: 2 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 1

WS05: 2nd Workshop on Beyond Words: The Role of Touch in Social Robotics

Organisers:

Adriana Tapus, Patrick Hénaff & Adnan Saood

Description:

Touch is one of the most fundamental ways humans communicate emotion, intention, and connection. As social robots increasingly enter daily life, in hospitals, classrooms, care facilities, and private homes, the capacity to sense, understand, and react appropriately to touch becomes essential for creating interactions that feel natural, intuitive, and socially meaningful. This workshop examines the central function of touch in social robotics, moving beyond verbal communication to explore how haptic interfaces and embodied interaction frameworks influence the ways robots relate to people. Bringing together renowned researchers in tactile sensing, affective haptics, physical human–robot interaction, and embodied cognition, the workshop invites participants to reflect on the latest scientific advances and open challenges. Through expert talks and in-depth discussions, attendees will gain insight into how tactile perception can be embedded into robotic systems, how touch can guide behavior and communication, and what ethical, social, and technical considerations must be addressed when enabling robots to engage physically with humans.

At its core, the workshop aims to spark interdisciplinary exchange across robotics, neuroscience, psychology, and design. It seeks to advance a key guiding question: What does it mean for a robot to touch, and how does this reshape the landscape of human–robot interaction? The program will explore a wide range of touch modalities, including force, pressure, vibration, temperature, and multimodal sensing enabled by emerging artificial skin technologies. It will also highlight progress in soft robotic materials, wearable haptic systems, and distributed tactile perception, considering how these innovations support affective communication, safety, and adaptability in physical interaction. Special attention will be given to the cognitive and computational models that allow robots to interpret the context of touch and respond in socially appropriate ways.

Contact: adriana.tapus@ensta.fr

Website: https://perso.ensta.fr/~saood/external/touch-workshop-2026/

Date: 3 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 1

WS06: Socially Competent Agents That Care (SCAC): Real-World Deployment Challenges for Rehabilitation and Assistive Robots

Organisers:

Sofia Thunberg, Laura Fiorini, Anouk Neerincx, Andrea Orlandini, Pieter Wolfert, Christian Tamantini, Adam Poulsen, Negin Hashmati, Fumihide Tanaka, Patrick Holthaus & Mark Neerincx

Description:

During the past two decades, several initiatives have sought to design, develop, and deploy social agents for care in different environments. Current assistive and rehabilitation robots often struggle to integrate personalisation, continuity of care, and user engagement, resulting in limited long-term effectiveness. To achieve these outcomes, agents must be socially competent, such as understanding and adapting to the needs of the user. This half-day workshop focuses on advancing research and development of real-world deployments of socially-competent agents that care. The main objectives of the workshop include: Exploring how multi-modal interaction and intelligent interfaces enhance assistive and rehabilitation robots; Fostering multidisciplinary dialogue between roboticists, AI researchers, clinicians and industry partners; Identifying open challenges toward sustainable and inclusive rehabilitation robotics; Discussing the challenges of operating in real environments; Presenting real use case discussing the sustainability and impact of the proposed services; Discussing value-based design, inclusiveness, and empathetic design for long-term human-robot interaction across rehabilitation and assistive robot applications.

Contact: sofia.thunberg@chalmers.se & laura.fiorini@unifi.it

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/scac26

Date: 2 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 2

WS07: Robots for Humans (RfH) 3rd Edition: Designing Social Robots That Spark Children’s Creativity

Organisers:

Farnaz Baksh, Francesca Cocchella, Omar Eldardeer, Marco Manca, Marco Matarese, Andrea Rezzani & Eleonora Zedda

Description:

Robots for Humans is a community-driven workshop that brings together researchers from diverse backgrounds to discuss challenges and opportunities of human-centred approaches in HRI. This third edition, “Designing Social Robots That Spark Children’s Creativity,” builds on the perspective that creativity is a fundamental component of children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development. Therefore, the workshop aims to explore how social robots can be designed to enhance, empower, and sustain children’s creativity skills. The program includes a participatory panel discussion that invites multiple perspectives to provide practical design guidelines for HRI research.

Contact: marco.matarese@unibz.it

Website: https://r4h-workshop.github.io

Date: 3 Jul 2026

Time: 9:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 1

WS08: Ethical Design in Human-Robot Interaction

Organisers:

Minja Axelsson, Paige Tuttösí, Jiaee Cheong, Joel Currie, Shalaleh Rismani, Patrícia Alves-Oliveira & Katie Seaborn

Description:

The design of human-robot interactions (HRI) in social robotics carries profound ethical implications for normativity, justice, and social well-being. Yet, ethical dimensions often remain underexplored or constrained by technical priorities. This raises an urgent question: How can designers include rather than marginalise, protect rather than manipulate, and empower rather than exploit? Through critique and discussion, this half-day workshop will cultivate a diverse community of design ethics inquiry and identify pathways for advancing ethical design in HRI.

The workshop objectives are:

  • 1) understanding the current state of ethical design in HRI,
  • 2) identifying its challenges,
  • 3) shaping future directions.

Contact: mwa29@cam.ac.uk

Website: https://rosielab.github.io/design_ethics/

Date: 3 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 3

WS09: ASIMOV Adaptive Social Interaction based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI

Organisers:

Mariacarla Staffa, Salvatore M. Anzalone, Maryam Alimardani, Lorenzo D’Errico & Giuseppe Palestra

Description:

ASIMOV 2026 explores how social robots can develop cognitive, affective, and social competencies to support adaptive, trustworthy, and ethically grounded human–robot interaction. It emphasizes mental modeling, real-time adaptation, long-term personalization, and socio-cognitive architectures, integrating insights from AI, cognitive science, and moral psychology. The workshop provides a collaborative forum to shape the next generation of socially intelligent robots capable of sustaining meaningful, human-centered relationships over time.

Contact: mariacarla.staffa@uniparthenope.it

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/asimov-icsr2026

Date: 3 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 2

WS10: CRAFT: Creative Robotics & AI for Fair Technologies

Organisers:

Doreen Jirak, Dirk van Rooy & Di Fu

Description:

Robotic systems and generative AI are evolving from automation tools into collaborative creative partners, forming hybrid ecosystems where human creativity meets machine interpretation and embodied robotic action. These socio-technical systems challenge traditional ideas of creativity, authorship, and agency. The workshop explores emerging practices across arts, design, architecture, and mixed reality, focusing on co-creation with AI and robotics. Emphasis is placed on explainable AI, human–AI–robot interaction, ethical and governance issues, and future research directions in creative robotics and embodied AI.

Contact: doreen.jirak@uantwerpen.be

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/craft-ws/home

Date: 3 Jul 2026

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 2

WS11: Configuring Robot Roles for Children: Developmental, Communicative, and Ethical Dimensions Across Contexts and Domains

Organisers:

Nils F. Tolksdorf, Adriana Hanulíková, Sarah Kapp & Franziska Plagwitz

Description:

Social roles shape how we relate to others—and we bring similar expectations to social robots. When robots act as tutors, peers, companions, or novices, children and adolescents interpret their guidance, uncertainty, and care through role-based lenses that affect learning, trust, and responsibility. Yet roles are not fixed: they are negotiated in dialogue and may need to shift across activities, contexts, cultures, and time. This workshop invites researchers and practitioners across HRI, psychology, education, linguistics, design, and AI ethics to share insights, methods, and designs for role-aware, developmentally appropriate, and transparent robot behavior.

Contact: tolksdorf@idf.uni-heidelberg.de

Website: https://smart-cognition-lab.de/icsr26/

Date: 2 Jul 2026

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 1

WS12: Embodied AI on Stage Co-Creating Physical Theatre with a Human–Robot Ensemble

Organisers:

Maleen Jayasuriya, Piumi Wijesundara, Damith Herath, David Cotterrell, Frederic Fol Leymarie, Daniel Berio, Samuele Vinanzi, Gavin Robins & Ruhanie Perera

Description:

This hands-on physical theatre workshop puts you on stage improvising with a collaborative robot powered by Vision-Action Models; transformer-based AI that responds to your movements as they happen. Through embodied exercises in Meyerhold’s biomechanics, Lecoq’s Tréteau theatre, and Viewpoints, you’ll develop complicité (ensemble attunement) with a robotic partner, creating movement narratives together. Engage directly with questions of robot agency, collaborative storytelling, and embodied AI in cultural contexts, working alongside experts across HRI, physical theatre, and robotic art. No robotics or performance experience needed—just curiosity and willingness to move. Drawing on nearly a decade of Robotic Art research. Limited to 20 participants.

Contact: maleen.jayasuriya@canberra.edu.au

Website: https://rapp-lab.roboticart.org

Date: 1 Jul 2026

Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Location: Workshop Room 1

WS13: Theatre in the Loop: A Rehearsal-Based Method for Shaping Expressive Robot Behaviour

Organisers:

Ayse Kucukyilmaz, Victor Ngo, Pavlos Panagiotidis, Sean Myatt, Simon Castle-Green, Dominic Price, John Kiran, Jocelyn Spence & Anthony Woods

Description:

Theatre in the Loop is a hands-on HRI workshop led by researchers from the University of Nottingham, introducing a rehearsal-based method for designing expressive robot behaviour. Drawing on puppetry, directing, and dramaturgical techniques, participants explore robots as social performers rather than purely functional systems. Through embodied manipulation of mock robots and transfer to real robotic platforms, attendees co-create and analyse expressive movements, scenes, and interaction dynamics. The workshop offers HRI researchers practical tools and conceptual frameworks for studying robot expressivity, intelligibility, and embodied interaction.

Contact: victor.ngo@nottingham.ac.uk

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/icsr2026theatreintheloop

Date: 2 Jul 2026

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 2

WS14: HYDROTHERABOTS: HYDROTHERApy using RoBOTS, AI, and VR Technologies for Physical Rehabilitation (2nd Edition)

Organisers:

Gokce Nur Yilmaz, Kutluk Bilge Arikan & John-John Cabibihan

Description:

Stroke remains one of the leading causes of long-term disability worldwide, underscoring the urgent need for innovative rehabilitation technologies. Hydrotherapy has long been recognized for its therapeutic benefits in stroke recovery; however, accessibility and personalization challenges persist.
This workshop presents HydroTheraBots, an advanced robotic hydrotherapy system developed to transform traditional stroke rehabilitation practices. By integrating a robotic gait-training platform with an intelligent sensor framework, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and immersive Virtual Reality (VR) modules, HydroTheraBots delivers adaptive, efficient, and patient-centered rehabilitation experiences tailored to the needs of senior stroke survivors.
Participants will engage with the system’s interdisciplinary design from the mechatronic architecture of the ground-based gait rehabilitation platform to the biomechanical principles governing underwater locomotion. The workshop will also highlight how AI algorithms and real-time data analytics enable dynamic adjustment of therapy parameters, ensuring optimal outcomes and patient safety.
Moreover, attendees will explore emerging trends at the intersection of robotics, hydrotherapy, AI, and VR that enhance motivation, engagement, and long-term recovery potential in neurological rehabilitation.

Contact: gokce.yilmaz@tedu.edu.tr

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/icsr23robosens

Date: 3 Jul 2026

Time: 09:00 – 12:00

Location: Workshop Room 4