Research

WEBSTEP: Towards an interactive web-based application in support of the methodological and theoretical integration of the multidisciplinary area of HRI (1.1.2025 → 31.12.2025) is a continuation project of the S-FACTOR project funded by NordForsk. The WEBSTEP project exploits the collaborative methodological synergy generated within the S-FACTOR project, which operated with uniquely wide interdisciplinary scope, to create the content and architecture of an interactive web platform that can guide other research teams in their methodological choices and offer better insights into different types of research designs for interdisciplinary HRI research. Without pre-empting the user’s choices, the “research pilot” HRI_WEBSTEP will in addition explain how to achieve value-geared, “actionable” HRI research that has the best promise for producing research results that are scientifically valid but also directly significant for assessing human well-being in human-robot interaction—i.e., results that policy makers so urgently need.

Trust and Value-Sensitive Design: (1.10.2022 → 30.9.2025) is a project funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established by the Academy of Finland. It is WP4 constituent of the SRC project . WP4 poses the question: How can we create practically applicable frameworks that steer the design and implementation of algorithmic systems in a societally sustainable, trust-enhancing manner? WP4 develops philosophically grounded frameworks and practical applications that provide analyses of key notions, including trust, safety and security and publicly shared values in relation to algorithmic systems. WP4 employs a genuinely co-creational approach, as the conceptual work is exercised in cooperation with the Utrecht Data School, the developer of the DEDA, an applicable value-sensitive design framework for the context of governmental data decision-making processes. 

Implementing Ethics by Design in AI: A training Framework for the Healthcare Sector (): (1.12.2024 → 31.11.2027) is an Erasmus+ cooperation partnership in higher education. The project aims to foster an environment where AI systems in healthcare and HR are developed and utilized with a strong ethical foundation. The training protocol will not only educate professionals on the importance of ethics in AI but also provide practical tools and strategies for implementing these principles in their daily operations. This initiative is a step towards ensuring that AI technologies are harnessed responsibly, with a keen awareness of their societal impact, particularly in sensitive sectors like healthcare and HR. The host of the project is University of Macerata, Italy, and the other university partners are Tallinn University (Tal-Tech), Estonia; University of Porto, Portugal; Ghent University, Belgium, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and us. 

: Facilitation Robotics for Teams: Foundational Research on Group Processes in Human-Robot Ensembles with Social Robots (1.1.2021 → 31.12.2024) is a collaborative NordForsk-funded project with Aarhus University, Royal Institute of Technology, and the University of Southern Denmark. Its overall aim is to investigate how human groups perform certain tasks when they are guided by a “social robot”. Following the methodology of "integrative social robotics", it develops social robotic applications that facilitate collaborative group processes, with the aim of improving group creativity and rationality in collective decision-making.

Towards Responsible Artificial Intelligence (1.3.2020 → 29.2.2024) is a project funded by the Kone Foundation, and it tries to develop an understanding of the nature of responsible artificial intelligence by studying the use of AI in situations of high societal relevance. In particular, it will focus on ethical problems raised by specific cases of the use of AI in social and health care systems in Finland and abroad.

ERROR-AI: Ethical Risks and Responsibility of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (1.9.2020 → 31.8.2024) is a project funded by the Academy of Finland. It aims at analysing the ethical risks and responsibility issues in situations resulting from the use of AI and robotics. It aims at specifying legitimate ways of allocating responsibility to various parties involved in the development and use of AI and robotics by studying actual use cases instead of imagined future situations.

Ethical Actions by Robots (1.6.2019 → 31.5.2022) is a project funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and its main aim is to study what kind of methods would allow implementing artificial agents such as robots that would be capable of acting in ethically acceptable ways, in accordance with moral rules. One possible route for that could be via evolution of moral cognition and moral motivation.