Millions of people worldwide leave their countries every year: refugees and asylum seekers may leave due to reasons such as wars, climate change and hostile environments, while the current global economic situation is also producing an increasing number of economic migrants. However, since most HRI research takes place with people in "WEIRD" (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) countries, HRI systems are generally designed for, and evaluated on, people who are familiar with WEIRD communication.

In this workshop, we will explore HRI solutions to provide services and support for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. We will also discuss the ethical issues behind the use of robots for these populations, potential lessons learned from existing work, and work towards HRI that contributes to communities feeling more at home and welcome as they navigate their way in their new countries.

Submission Guidelines

Authors can submit papers of 2-4 pages plus references. All papers must be submitted in PDF and must follow the ICRA double-column format. Templates are available here. All papers will be peer-reviewed (single-blind). Both unpublished original contributions and previously published work may be submitted.

We seek extended abstracts (2-4 pages, plus references, in IEEE format) on any of the following topics:

• HRI with Refugees, Asylum seekers or Migrants (RASM)
• Participatory HRI research with RASM
• Ethics, privacy, bias, fairness, accountability and transparency in HRI with RASM
• Anti-racist robotics
• HRI and human rights

Submitted work may be past, present, or future-facing. That is, submitted work can describe previously published work, new results, research plans, or speculations as to how one's prior work might apply in future research to this new domain. Accepted papers will be accompanied by talks and/or poster presentations and will be archived on the workshop website.

Committees

Organizing committee

• Shaul Ashkenazi
• Martim Brandao
• Mary Ellen Foster
• Masoumeh Mansouri
• Jane Stuart-Smith
• Tom Williams

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to Shaul.Ashkenazi@glasgow.ac.uk