The Analytical Laboratory Robotics Topic group of euRobotics has released the next iteration of the roadmap for Analytical Laboratory Robotics in Europe.

It is entitled ‘Research roadmap for laboratory community-automating discovery: high throughput experimentation, diagnostics and robotics/AI’.

The roadmap will be formally launched during the Future Labs Live 2025 event at the Congress Centre Basel on Thursday 27 June at 15:45-16:15 (Room Kairo).

Robotics, and associated technologies such as computer vision, mechatronics and artificial intelligence are rapidly evolving. The roadmap serves to bring together the needs and opportunities to the attention of the funders.

Taking input from well over 100 lab users, innovators, technology researchers, academics, vendors and startups, the roadmap builds on the previous edition, to guide research funding and build the roadmap for robotics in Europe.

Highlights of the roadmap include:

• The continued importance of digitisation in the laboratory and standards like SiLA (Standards in Laboratory Automation)
• Factors contributing to the gap between research and market adoption of robotics
• The importance of intuitiveness when it comes to robotics in various labs
• Future of robotics lies in collaboration between sectors, disciplines and borders
• The recent interest in the automation of science

Co-author Patrick Courtney co-leads a European working group on analytical laboratory robotics and is member of board of directors of SiLA. He commented: “We were positively surprised by strong response to the workshops. This initiative clearly addresses a gap in community building and should help drive funding priorities.”

While serving primarily the European Commission, the authors hope that the content will also serve national and regional initiatives.