Leuven, Belgium, 3 February 2026 — The EU-funded EARASHI project (Ethical and Responsible AI for the Shopfloor) officially concluded with its final event, “Designing for People: Building Trustworthy Robotics & AI in Industry”, bringing together industrial stakeholders, technology providers, researchers and policy representatives to reflect on the project’s results and future impact.
Over the past four years, EARASHI has worked to advance the responsible, human-centric deployment of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in industrial environments, with a strong focus on operator empowerment, ethics, and trust.
The final event, hosted at Flanders Make in Leuven, provided a comprehensive overview of the project’s achievements and combined strategic discussions with hands-on demonstrations, highlighting the concrete outcomes delivered by the project.
Speakers from the EARASHI consortium representing key technology domains presented technology roadmaps and strategic building blocks developed within the project, outlining how these solutions can shape future industrial capabilities and innovation pathways.
Participants were also invited to take part in guided technical tours of the Flanders Make facilities, where several EARASHI building blocks were demonstrated live, including Mixed Reality, Predictive Maintenance, Autonomy and Drone Technology, and Human-Centric AI for quality inspection. Additional building blocks were presented through digital showcases, covering AI and intelligent systems, data and operational intelligence, and AI-driven quality and inspection.
A dedicated roundtable on human-centricity, ethics and trust brought together representatives from EARASHI and sister projects to discuss how Robotics and AI can be deployed responsibly on the shop floor. Direct interaction with the JARVIS, MOZART, INTELLIMEN and INVERSE projects enabled exchanges on lessons learned and challenges encountered, while showcasing strong inter-project coordination and collaboration.
Isabelle Dor, coordinator of EARASHI project, “EARASHI final event, gathering granted SMEs and start-ups, leading European Research Centers and universities, companies and non-profit organizations, has illustrated the opportunities offered by the Financial Support to Third Parties funding also called Cascade funding to leverage the uptake of innovative technologies by start-ups and SMEs and strengthen their road to market. It also highlighted the added value of the services proposed as part of the support to the granted SMEs and designed to their needs and interests: human-centric design method deployment, eco-design coaching, business support, technical expertise, ethics and data protection. This results in a unique and very fruitful collaboration along the whole EU ecosystem, strengthening EU industry to face the challenges to come.”
Ganix Lasa Erle, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, “EARASHI’s final event confirmed that real progress in AI and robotics depends on rigorous human-centred design. Trust, perceived safety, and worker involvement emerged as decisive factors for real-world adoption, with many deployment barriers linked to design rather than technology. By integrating acceptance metrics and continuous feedback into real application experiments, the project showed that human-centred design is a technical requirement. The message was clear: co-creation is essential for scalable, trustworthy automation in European factories”
While the event formally concluded the EARASHI project activities, its outcomes will continue to support industrial adoption, future research and policy dialogue on trustworthy Robotics and AI. The final event confirmed strong interest from industry and stakeholders in further building on the project’s results through follow-up initiatives, collaborations and standardisation activities.
Zoi Arkouli, coordinator of JARVIS project “What stood out from the discussion is that human-centricity, ethics, and trust are not constraints on innovation, they are what make innovation sustainable. Technology is adopted in industry only when people trust it, understand it, and feel supported by it, which is why human-centred design is essential, supported by participatory approaches that involve end users early and continuously.”
EARASHI is an EU project funded by Horizon Europe under GA 101069994.