The smart city of Milton Keynes hosted the first edition of the European Robotics League (ERL)- Smart Cities Robotic Challenge (SciRoc Challenge). Ten European teams met in the shopping mall of Centre:mk to compete against each other in five futuristic scenarios in which robots assist humans serving coffee orders, picking products in a grocery shop or bringing medical aid. This robotics competition aims at benchmarking robots using a ranking system that allows teams to assess their performance and compare it with others. The European Robotics League (ERL) was launched in 2016 under the umbrella of SPARC- the Partnership for Robotics in Europe. This pan-European robotics competition builds on the success of the EU-funded projects: RoCKIn, euRathlon, EuRoC and ROCKEU2.

The European Robotics League (ERL) presents the SciRoc Challenge, a new robotics competition on smart cities that occurs every two years in a European city. Funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 framework programme, the first SciRoc challenge takes place in the city of Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. They update stock lists, take customers' orders or find out the location of a person in need. On the third day of the competition, teams continued competing in the five different episodes and the public could see the first trials in the emergency category. The aerial teams were ready to start delivering autonomously the first-aid kit to the mannequin placed inside the flying arena!

The ERL Smart Cities Robotics Challenge 2019 takes place from 17-21st September in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. Funded by the European Commission under the SciRoc Horizon 2020 project, this new challenge of the European Robotics League (ERL) focuses on the role of robots in smart cities. The competition includes five different episodes or scenarios under three categories: human-robot interaction & mobility, emergency and manipulation. On the second day of the competition teams kept working on improving their scores to secure a place in the finals. Manipulation The SciRoc episodes under this category require robots to achieve manipulation tasks, applying some of the task benchmarks (TBMs) of the ERL Professional and the ERL Consumer Service Robots leagues.

The European Robotics Forum 2018 (ERF2018) in Tampere brought together over 900 attendees from robotics academia and industry. To bridge the two, euRobotics hosted the Georges Giralt PhD Award 2017 & 2018 and the TechTransfer Award 2018, during a Gala Dinner event on 14 March, in Tampere, Finland. The aim of the euRobotics Technology Transfer Award (now in its 15th year) is to showcase the impact of robotics research and to raise the profile of technology transfer between science and industry. Outstanding innovations in robot technology and automation that result from cooperative efforts between research and industry are eligible for the prize. The First prize went to Germany's Roboception: rc_visard – 3D perception & manipulation for robots made easy team, composed of Michael Suppa, and Heiko Hirschmueller from Roboception GmbH, and Alin Albu-Schaeffer from the Institute of Robotics and German Aerospace Center (DLR).

The European Robotics League (ERL) announced the winners of ERL Emergency Robots 2017 major tournament, during the awards ceremony held on Saturday, 23rd September at Giardini Pro Patria, in Piombino, Italy. The ERL Emergency Robots 2017 competition consisted of four scenarios, inspired by the nuclear accident of Fukushima (Japan, 2011) and designed specifically for multi-domain human-robot teams. The first scenario is The Grand Challenge made up of three domains – sea, air, land, and the other three scenarios are made of only two domains. The Awards, given for each scenario to the best performing teams, were introduced by Alan Winfield from Bristol Robotics Laboratory and ERL Emergency Coordinator. "The energy, enthusiasm and spirit of cooperation among the teams competing in ERL Emergency was amazing. We witnessed not only great performances from the teams and their robots, but also the drama and excitement of last minute field repairs and workarounds to the robots", said Alan Winfield.

The European Robotics League (ERL) announced the winners of ERL Emergency Robots 2017 major tournament, during the awards ceremony held on Saturday, 23rd September at Giardini Pro Patria, in Piombino, Italy. In addition to the Competition Awards, Marta Palau Franco from Bristol Robotics Laboratory and ERL Emergency project manager introduced the referees' special awards. "Behind a multi-domain competition there is always a large technical committee, I feel privileged to have worked with such an amazing team of volunteer referees, technical assistants and safety pilots and divers. We were delighted to give these awards to recognise teams' effort, fair play and hard work. The experience of participating in this robotics competition will prove beneficial for team members to develop further their professional career", said Marta Palau Franco.

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) will host the first European- Commission funded European Robotics League (ERL) tournament for service robots to be held in the UK. Two teams from the BRL and Birmingham will pitch their robots against each other in a series of events from 26 and 30 June. Robots designed to support people with care-related tasks in the home will be put to the test in a simulated home test bed. The assisted living robots of the two teams will face various challenges, including understanding natural speech and finding and retrieving objects for the user. The robots will also have to greet visitors at the door appropriately, such as welcoming a doctor on their visit, or turning away unwanted visitors.

The European Robotics League has closed a successful first season. Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme for research, the ERL brings a common framework for two indoor robotics competitions, ERL Industrial Robots and ERL Service Robots and one outdoor robotics competition, ERL Emergency Robots. The three competitions are designed to target three clear objectives: the European societal challenge of an aging population, the strengthening of the European robotics industry and the use of autonomous systems for emergency response. The last tournament of the ERL season 2016/17 took place at the Leon@Home Test bed located at the Módulo de Investigación en Cibernética of the Universidad de León, Spain. The ERL Service Robots local competition organised by Dr Vicente Matellan and the Leon Robotics Group was held from the 13-17 March and consisted of several trials, which mainly took place on the last day.

The 2017 European Robotics Forum in Edinburgh brought together over 800 people from robotics academia and industry. In an effort to bridge the two, euRobotics hosted an Entrepreneurship and TechTransfer award. Startups from around Europe competed for top prizes in front of a panel of experts. The euRobotics Technology Transfer Award, now in its fourteenth year, showcases the impact of robotics research and puts the spotlight on successful technology transfer between science and industry. Innovations in robot tech and automation -- through the result of research and industry working together -- are eligible for the prize.