On 18 February, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, and Champalimaud Foundation (CF) established a strategic partnership by signing a Memorandum of Understanding to create a Neurorobotics Laboratory (Neurorobotics Lab) within the Champalimaud Foundation’s Neurotechnology Warehouse. The agreement establishes a framework for long-term scientific, technological and training cooperation between the two institutions.
The partnership’s mission is to promote interdisciplinary research excellence at the intersection of neuroscience, robotics and artificial intelligence, with scientific, clinical and technological impact. The new laboratory will organize its activities around four main research areas: neurorehabilitation and digital therapeutics; embodied AI (artificial intelligence incorporated into physical systems, such as robots, that interact with the environment through the body and the senses); social robotics; and biomimetic robotic creatures.
“The partnership involves various collaborative efforts, including joint student supervision, the development of joint research projects, and the organisation of joint events. A key initiative is the establishment of a joint experimentation space (Neurorobotics Laboratory), which aims to leverage multidisciplinary research between the research areas of ISR-Lisboa and the CF’s excellence in neuroscience”, says Pedro Lima, president of the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR-Lisboa) and professor at Técnico. “In this way, we hope to be able to raise the impact of our scientific production on the interaction of Artificial Intelligence with the physical world to a higher level, for example, in robotics, health, or smart cities”.
Under this agreement, the Champalimaud Foundation will incorporate the laboratory into its neurotechnology ecosystem and will provide access to scientific infrastructure and platforms. Técnico, through ISR-Lisboa, will share its expertise in robotics, autonomous systems, brain-computer interfaces, neuroimaging, and neuroengineering, involving senior researchers, engineers, and postgraduate students.
The partnership has an initial duration of five years and includes joint projects, applications for national and European competitive funding, and advanced training programmes.
A tour of the Técnico / ISR-Lisboa laboratories associated with the partnership took place on the day the agreement was signed, highlighting areas such as Cognitive, Social and Intelligent Robotics, and Biomedical Engineering. This institutional visit was attended by Leonor Beleza and João Silveira Botelho, the President and Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the Champalimaud Foundation, respectively. Técnico was represented by President Rogério Colaço and researchers from ISR-Lisboa.
*This text was written in collaboration with the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR-Lisboa)
