#ERF2026 Plenary on Industry Policy / resilience

Video Description

Date: 24 March 2026 Location: Stavanger, Norway Part of the European Robotics Forum 2026 Organizer and moderator: • Nabil Belbachir, NORCE Research and EU-Robotics, Norway. Panellists: • Brando Benifei, EU Parliament, Online. • Heather Buisman, NATO DIANA, UK. • Flavio Fusco, Leonardo, Italy. • Linn Winsnes Thrane, Kongsberg, Norway. • Michelle Williams, AkerBP, Norway Europe’s resilience depends on sustained investment in robotics across entire supply chains In today’s interconnected global economy, resilience requires technological leadership built on secure, stable, and diversified supply chains. Supply-chain security is no longer an industrial issue alone, but it is also a cornerstone of national economic policy. Robotics lies at the heart of this technological race. It: 1. Addresses labour shortages in defence, manufacturing, and services; 2. Reduces offshoring and enables reshoring of industrial production; 3. Improves safety and welfare by taking over dangerous, dirty, and delicate tasks; 4. Enables strategic supply chains, including motors and batteries (critical raw materials and rare earths), advanced construction, high-performance manufacturing, and the development of skilled engineers and technicians. Europe, once a global robotics leader since the 1970s, is now experiencing a steady erosion of its industrial base. Market share is shrinking, ownership of key robotics companies has moved abroad, expertise is being lost, and control over critical production supply chains is weakening. At the same time, European investment policy has focused disproportionately on artificial intelligence, often treating robotics as a mere application of AI. This is a conceptual error. While robotics and AI increasingly intersect, they differ fundamentally in technology, economics, and risk. Robotics is rooted in engineering and hardware; actuators, sensors, mechanics, motors, whereas AI is primarily software and algorithms. Robotics markets prioritize precision, speed, reliability, and safety, while recent AI investments have concentrated on generative software and speculative “brain–body” narratives, often without proven industrial returns. Robotics companies face higher capital expenditure and longer development cycles, but they also create tangible assets, skilled jobs, and resilient industrial ecosystems. By contrast, many AI investments rely on optimistic expectations of future returns at a time when global debt exceeded USD 346 trillion (around 310% of global GDP) by the end of 2025. Europe should build on what it knows best. Instead, the lack of targeted robotics investment has already led to the loss of flagship companies and strategic capabilities, including Prox Dynamics (acquired by FLIR, 2016), KUKA (Midea, 2016), Universal Robots (Teledyne, 2017), AutoStore (SoftBank, 2021), 1X Technologies (backed by Microsoft, 2023), and ABB Robotics (SoftBank, 2025). Europe, traditionally aligned with the United States, must now develop its own long-term strategy under an emerging economy of war. Recovery, growth, and sustainability require strategic autonomy. Robotics should be a central pillar of this strategy, with coordinated development across the full supply chain—from raw materials to electronics, batteries, and manufacturing systems. The global order is shifting from a U.S.-dominated unipolar system to a multipolar world marked by protectionism and competing national ecosystems. To avoid becoming a geopolitical appendage, Europe must act decisively. In this plenary, we talk about how Europe can strengthen its resilience and strategic autonomy, learning from previous experiences and current practices. Investing in robotics is one of the most concrete and effective steps Europe can take to secure resilient, sustainable, and sovereign industrial supply chains, fully aligned with its engineering tradition and industrial heritage. www.erf2026.eu www.eu-robotics.net