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  4. Soft Robotics: A Route to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity in Robotics
 
research article

Soft Robotics: A Route to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity in Robotics

Aracri, Simona
•
Hughes, Josie  
•
Della Santina, Cosimo
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May 30, 2024
Soft Robotics

Robotics is entering our daily lives. The discipline is increasingly crucial in fields such as agriculture, medicine, and rescue operations, impacting our food, health, and planet. At the same time, it is becoming evident that robotic research must embrace and reflect the diversity of human society to address these broad challenges effectively. In recent years, gender inclusivity has received increasing attention, but it still remains a distant goal. In addition, awareness is rising around other dimensions of diversity, including nationality, religion, and politics. Unfortunately, despite the efforts, empirical evidence shows that the field has still a long way to go before achieving a sufficient level of equality, diversity, and inclusion across these spectra. This study focuses on the soft robotics community-a growing and relatively recent subfield-and it outlines the present state of equality and diversity panorama in this discipline. The article argues that its high interdisciplinary and accessibility make it a particularly welcoming branch of robotics. We discuss the elements that make this subdiscipline an example for the broader robotic field. At the same time, we recognize that the field should still improve in several ways and become more inclusive and diverse. We propose concrete actions that we believe will contribute to achieving this goal, and provide metrics to monitor its evolution.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1089/soro.2023.0225
Web of Science ID

WOS:001234651400001

Author(s)
Aracri, Simona
•
Hughes, Josie  
•
Della Santina, Cosimo
•
Jovanova, Jovana
•
Hoh, Sam
•
Morales, Ditzia Susana Garcia
•
Barcaro, Rosangela
•
Tan, Yu Jun
•
Kortman, Vera G.
•
Sakes, Aimee
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Date Issued

2024-05-30

Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc

Published in
Soft Robotics
Subjects

Technology

•

Inclusivity

•

Soft Robotics

•

Diversity And Inclusion

•

Gender

•

Equality

•

Interdisciplinarity

•

Intersectionality

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
CREATE-LAB  
Available on Infoscience
June 19, 2024
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/208683
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