El Dr. Bernd Liepert preside euRobotics aisbl, una asociación internacional sin ánimo de lucro y con sede en Bruselas (Bélgica) que agrupa a profesionales de la industria robótica europea. Graduado en Matemáticas por la Universidad de Augsburgo (Alemania) y doctor honoris causa por la Universidad de Magdeburgo (Alemania), ha estado muchos años vinculado a KUKA, en donde ha ocupado diferentes cargos.
The Spanish robotics sector is a significant player and a vital asset for the European economy and as President of euRobotics, the European robotics association, I welcome this opportunity on these pages to share some personal perspectives with the Spanish robotics community. Our association has close links with Spain.
At euRobotics we currently enjoy the presence of around 30 Spanish organisations within our membership. Indeed, if we look at how countries are ranked by the number of members within euRobotics, Spain is always in the top 3, together with Germany and Italy. In addition, we have a very active community in Spain including our National Coordinator Ricardo Muñoz, together with whom we co-organised the European Robotics Week Central Event in Zaragoza in 2024.
The Spanish robotics ecosystem is also well represented in our Board of Directors. At the moment, we have four directors including Daniel Serrano from Eurecat, Francesco Ferro from PAL Robotics, Jon Agirre from Tecnalia and Ramiro Martínez from Universidad de Sevilla. The relationship between euRobotics and Spain goes right back to the beginning of euRobotics itself. Back in 2010, we held the first European Robotics Forum (ERF), under another name at that time, in San Sebastián. Ten years later, in 2020, the ERF returned to Spain, this time to Málaga where more than 700 robotics experts, companies and policy makers gathered for 3 days.
With the rapid global spread of Covid-19 and growing restrictions on travel, this was a challenging time to be staging a physical event, especially one on such a large scale as the European Robotics Forum. Thanks to careful handling and a display of courage by the local organising team in Málaga, led by J. Jesús Fernández Lozano and Alfonso J. García Cerezo, plus some steady nerves at euRobotics, we were able to go ahead despite the pandemic and held a successful ERF. Days later, a widespread lockdown brought a complete halt to in-person events, and it would be two more years before we were able to enjoy the benefits of a physical ERF once again.
AI alone cannot deliver the performance, safety, and durability that users expect
Nonetheless, we knew that it would only be a matter of time before we would return to the fertile ground that Spain offers for bringing industry and research together – a combination that forms part of our core purpose at euRobotics. Indeed, winding the clock forward to November 2024 and we were back, this time in Zaragoza for the Central Event within European Robotics Week.
In Aragón’s historic capital we joined forces with the Aragón Institute of Technology (ITA) and Hisparob to present a fascinating day of institutional presentations, together with a range of educational activities that brought together and visibly engaged more than 350 children from the region. For euRobotics it was yet another successful collaboration on Spanish soil. I have no doubt at all that there will be others to come.
Resilience
Let me turn now to address a fundamental question, not just for euRobotics or for the European robotics sector in isolation, but one that will influence Europe’s economic fortunes and in turn help shape Europe’s wider place in an increasingly volatile world. The question is this: how can we best preserve and reinforce the resilience of Europe’s robotics ecosystem?
That resilience has become one of its most critical strengths — but is also among its biggest challenges. Over the past decade and a half, the pace of change has accelerated in ways few could have anticipated. In 2010, research and innovation were still centred on improving controller technologies, system reliability, and fundamental robotic functions. By 2020, AI, digitalisation and connectivity had reshaped the landscape, bringing robotics into the heart of industrial transformation.
Now, in 2025, the pertinent question is whether Europe can now harness this momentum: making AI genuinely useful for robotics and closing the “last mile” between research breakthroughs and practical, trustworthy AI-empowered robots that meet real societal and industrial needs. The answer must be ‘yes’ – but that outcome is not a foregone conclusion, for several reasons.
The European robotics ecosystem is being challenged by a complex economic and geopolitical environment. Positioned between East and West, Europe faces growing competition as well as vulnerabilities in global supply chains. To secure its position, Europe must now turn the thoughts elaborated in several strategy documents, including the euRobotics’ own “A Unified Vision for European Robotics” toward concrete action, strengthening its ability to design, manufacture, and, crucially, to deploy the robots that our industries, public services, and communities demand — from industrial systems to healthcare and disaster response technologies that provide immediate societal value.
Europe’s attractiveness as “the great place to be” for robotics professionals, entrepreneurs, and innovators is important for the sector’s resilience
Resilience also depends on Europe’s ability to strengthen its own industrial and technological foundations. This means robust supply chains, reduced dependencies, and sustained innovation not only in AI but also in mechanical design, precision mechatronics, actuation, sensing, and integration. These areas are the backbone of reliable robotic systems. Without continuous progress in them, AI alone cannot deliver the performance, safety, and durability that users expect. euRobotics is currently addressing that topic and will discuss it with the European robotics community during ERF March 2026 in Stavanger, Norway, and in some online events.
Equally important is Europe’s attractiveness as “the great place to be” for robotics professionals, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Associations, networks, and collaborative platforms are central in creating these conditions, enabling start-ups, established companies, and research teams to meet, interact and thrive together, all of this underpinned by European values such as freedom of research which can no longer be guaranteed elsewhere. The resilience of the ecosystem is also rooted in the interaction between research and industry.
Europe’s strength lies in combining world-class science with advanced engineering, but this requires alignment and collaboration. Breakthroughs in AI, cognition, and human-robot interaction must go hand in hand with innovations in hardware, materials, energy-efficient drives, and modular system architectures. Start-ups and SMEs need access to markets and supply chains, while large companies must remain open to innovation emerging from research labs and entrepreneurial initiatives.
Industry-led associations, such as AER Automation and euRobotics, have a crucial role to play in ensuring that European robotics ecosystem remains strong, adaptive, and globally relevant
By reinforcing supply chains, supporting start-ups, aligning with shared strategies, and strengthening research-industry collaboration, Europe can ensure that its robotics ecosystem remains strong, adaptive, and globally relevant. To achieve this, however, joint action is required. Industry-led associations, such as AER Automation and euRobotics, have a crucial role to play in shaping this path forward — by working together to reach out to policy makers, by engaging directly with industry to mobilise support, and by pressing for political action to massively reduce the bureaucratic burden that often hampers innovation across the EU and other European countries such as the UK and Switzerland. Only through such collective effort can we secure the resilience of Europe’s robotics ecosystem for the future.
To close, then, Spain was the setting for euRobotics as a nascent, not-yet-born association in 2010. The strength of its robotics sector has earned Spain a place at the heart of the European robotics community, a position that no-one can doubt that it powerfully occupies today. From this, it is clear to me that what Spanish robotics does next will have an important influence, not only on the fortunes of the Spanish economy but discernibly on Europe as a whole.
I wish AER and its members every success for the next year and beyond.