It is a good time to revisit what is happening currently with social robots use in health and care. Start from the work of LIFEBOTS Exchange. Not only has the COMFORTage project now piloted how digital technologies can support the lives of people with dementia and their carers. Furthermore, a Norwegian and Scottish collaboration is co-organising a webinar on the use of robotics in long-term care.

Source: LIFEBOTS Exchange (Cáritas Coimbra design team)

This summer, the 2026 international movie isn’t the only odyssey around. In “The LIFEBOTS Odyssey”, the LIFEBOTS Exchange project – a Marie Skłodowska-Curie action – laid out its work in depth at the start of 2025. After a five year journey of interaction and exchange, the LIFEBOTS Exchange project announced an overview of its work and its participants’ views of the future.

The project’s 2025 report dove deep into its own and others’ use of social robots in health and care. It included experiences with social robots at e.g., Cáritas Coimbra in Portugal. It investigated activities with more than 20 different types of social robots. It foresaw the future of social robots in hospitals, older people’s care homes, rehabilitation centres, remote care, and in people’s own homes – undertaking more than a dozen types of tasks.

The report ended with three takeaway observations:

• Social robots transcend traditional robotics.
• Development requires an interdisciplinary approach.
• Implementation hinges on a multi-level strategy.

And it concluded that the work undertaken in LIFEBOTS Exchange was all about “unlock[ing] transformative benefits in the social and healthcare sectors” (p25).

Afterwards, LIFEBOTS Exchange handed on the baton to colleagues working in other similar projects, including the COMFORTage project.

In some of its 13 pilots, COMFORTage has been examining how digital technologies can support people with dementia as well as their carers. Examples include personalised care models, virtual reality, smart homes, and social robots. Among others, pilot investigations with end-users have taken place in locations in Greece, Romania, and Spain.

Now an opportunity is available – through an open call – until 3 October 2026 to apply to twin your own experiences with relevant COMFORTage pilots.

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In addition, through Robotics in long-term care, on 11 September 2026, in a two-hour webinar, find out what’s happening at the National Robotarium (Scotland) and in Norwegian municipal nursing homes, including on service robots.

For more information

COMFORTage and LIFEBOTS Exchange: Social robots assisting carers

Social robots: From LIFEBOTS to COMFORTage

Robotics in long-term care webinar

The LIFEBOTS Exchange project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No. 824047 as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie action.