euRobotics well-represented at Future Labs Live
Future Labs Live took place in Basel at the end of June and euRobotics was well-represented both as an official partner and via the active involvement both by members of the euRobotics team and by several well-established euRobotics members. The reach of Future Labs Live was impressive, spanning start-ups and innovators from academia and a spread of sectors, many highly relevant to robotics, including Biotech, Pharma, Chemicals and Agrifood, also architects and planners. euRobotics Secretary-General Reinhard Lafrenz took part in a discussion on the ‘Research roadmap for the laboratory community: Automating discovery: high throughput experimentation, diagnostics and robotics/AI’, moderated by Patrick Courtney, Director, SiLA Consortium. The discussion also featured Radhika Gudipati, another familiar figure from the euRobotics community, who at that time was transitioning from her role at Ocado Technology to a new role at ARIA, the Advanced Research and Inventions Agency (read In Profile: Radhika Gudipati). Among the highlights, Patrick and Radhika also showcased and launched their much-anticipated joint White Paper on laboratory automation at this session. Radhika later chaired a session on Automated, Integrated & Interoperable Discovery. And then, bringing a busy three days to fruition, euRobotics President Bernd Liepert joined the closing Keynote panel, which considered the theme ‘Maintaining digital lab innovation in Europe – How can we stay ahead of the curve?’
It was Radhika’s first time at FLL. By contrast, Patrick is now an old hand after participating several times. Both were very satisfied with this year’s event.
Their shared objective was to get the best possible public launch for a new white paper on Laboratory Robotics in Europe, which was unveiled at FLL.
Its full title is: Automating Discovery: Laboratory automation, high throughput experimentation, diagnostics and laboratory robotics/AI. The paper collates the results of a series of interviews and contributions from the laboratory community. It was produced on behalf of the Analytical Laboratory Robotics Topic Group within euRobotics (www.robotics-portal.eu/topicgroups). The white paper’s intended purpose is to provide input into the European Commission’s (EC’s) research roadmaps, and it is an update after eight years on a previous version published in 2016.
So what kind of reception did it receive at its first formal public appearance? Radhika: “Ours was one of the last sessions and I was only expecting that a few people would stay. But we had a good representation of 40-50 people. We’d had a lot of hard copies printed and they were all taken!”
Asked about what interested the audience in particular, Radhika said: “There were a few questions but a lot of them were really on the basics – what is euRobotics? What is a topic group? It was the first time some of the people there had heard about this, so it was a good platform. There were lots of follow-up emails after FLL and we’ve also been reaching out to them with a copy of the white paper.”
The white paper itself represents hours of work – well over 100, says Radhika – and over a long time-period. “We interviewed over 40 stakeholders during 2020-21. We had to pause during the pandemic. There were two further brain-storming workshops and lots of drafting and re-drafting – the final version was v18!”
They both declared themselves more than happy with the outcome. “We sincerely thank euRobotics for its support, especially Bernd, also Inge and Reinhard for logistical and organisational support.” Noting that the white paper itself is an attractive and well-designed production, Radhika gave credit to Corina Radu for her work on the look, feel and format of the final document.
So what next for the white paper?
Patrick: “We want to get more people into the topic group and then get them to present what they are doing. We’re starting to get some momentum, with an invitation to present on some national programmes, such as in Germany.”
Radhika: “We encourage other topic groups to follow the white paper route. Ours was 40 pages but even an 8-page paper would have some impact.”
Final word to Patrick: “Some people try to do ‘perfect’ but ‘messy’ is OK! It’s important to release something.”
Soundbites: What’s good about FLL?
PATRICK: “All events where users and vendors come together are useful. At Future Labs Live we know people well. The big pharma industry is very present and the presentations are high quality. It’s a diverse audience of 3,000 people so it isn’t hard to find someone interesting to talk to. It’s all very friendly. It’s also a free event! Another valuable aspect is that a lot of the presentations are about state-of-the-art research that is still in progress and hasn’t been published yet.”
RADHIKA: “It’s the right location, the right venue, bringing together tech providers and tech users. Sometimes at trade shows you don’t get to see what’s cooking in research labs but at FLL the vibe was similar to ERF with a strong presence from both industry and academics. It’s also good to get a flavour of lab automation specifically instead of industry automation.”