Aracri Simona, Hughes Josie, Della Santina Cosimo, Jovanova Jovana, Hoh Sam, Garcia Morales Ditzia Susana, Barcaro Rosangela, Tan Yu Jun, Kortman Vera G, Sakes Aimée, Partridge Alix J, Cianchetti Matteo, Laschi Cecilia, Mazzolai Barbara, Stokes Adam A, Alvarado Pablo Valdivia, Yeow Chen Hua, Odetti Angelo, Lo Gatto Valentina, Pisacane Lucio, Caccia Massimo
National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Roma, Italy.
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Soft Robot. 2024 Dec;11(6):903-910. doi: 10.1089/soro.2023.0225. Epub 2024 May 30.
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.
机器人技术正在走进我们的日常生活。这一学科在农业、医学和救援行动等领域愈发关键，对我们的食物、健康和地球产生影响。与此同时，越来越明显的是，机器人研究必须接纳并反映人类社会的多样性，才能有效应对这些广泛的挑战。近年来，性别包容性受到了越来越多的关注，但它仍是一个遥远的目标。此外，人们对包括国籍、宗教和政治在内的其他多样性维度的认识也在提高。不幸的是，尽管付出了努力，但实证证据表明，该领域在实现这些方面足够程度的平等、多样性和包容性之前，仍有很长的路要走。本研究聚焦于软机器人技术领域——一个不断发展且相对较新的子领域——并概述了该学科平等与多样性的现状全景。文章认为，其高度的跨学科性和可及性使其成为机器人技术中一个特别受欢迎的分支。我们讨论了使这个子学科成为更广泛机器人领域典范的要素。同时，我们认识到该领域仍应在几个方面加以改进，变得更具包容性和多样性。我们提出了我们认为有助于实现这一目标的具体行动，并提供了监测其发展的指标。
