Past Debates

ICRA 2022 Debates

The fourth Debate on the Future of Robotics Research took place in Philadelphia, USA, as part of ICRA 2022. You can find the debates of the live stream below.

Debate 1: Algorithms should not be published without an open-source reference implementation.


Debate 2: Research in robotics is intrinsically a social good because we seek to solve the dull, dirty, and dangerous stuff

Debate 3: The investment and involvement of industry giants in robotics research in academia is positive.

ICRA 2021 Debates

The third Debates on the Future of Robotics Research took place virtually, as part of ICRA 2021. Over 1000 viewers from around the globe tuned in for the debates live stream! You can find an archive of the live stream below.

You can read more about the event on the 2021 debates web page.

ICRA 2020 Debates

The second Debates on the Future of Robotics Research took place virtually, as part of ICRA 2020. Over 1000 viewers from around the globe tuned in for the debates live stream! You can find an archive of the live stream below.

You can read more about the event on the 2020 debates web page.

Following up on the debates, we published an article on Robohub on the need for formal debates in the robotics community.

ICRA 2019 Debates

We held the first Debates on the Future of Robotics Research workshop at ICRA 2019 in Montreal. The workshop was first inspired by the debates that took place at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) in 2018. 

You can read more about the event on the 2019 debates web page.

We have also published a Robotics & Automation Magazine article about the event.

Clement, Lee, et al. "Where Do We Go From Here? Debates on the Future of Robotics Research at ICRA 2019 [From the Field]." IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 26.3 (2019): 7-10.