At the European Robotics Forum 2026 in Stavanger, Bernd Liepert handed over the presidency of euRobotics to Francesco Ferro, CEO of PAL Robotics. Rocking Robots spoke with both on the lessons of the past decade and the direction for the next.
Bernd Liepert led euRobotics for more than a decade. In his view, the organisation he helped build succeeded in something that was far from obvious at the time: bringing research and industry together under one roof. “They were two groups speaking different languages. Twelve board members from research, twelve from industry — getting them aligned was a serious challenge.”
Liepert regards euRobotics becoming self-sustaining after its initial phase of public-private partnership with the European Commission as a second milestone. At the same time, the organisation had to resist pressure to merge into broader AI-focused alliances. “We said: no, our work is robotics. And with the current geopolitical shifts, you can see that the importance of physical robots — alongside all the software and AI — is finally being more widely recognised. That gives me a good feeling.”
His critique of the market is blunt. Too much money has flowed in recent years into what he describes as dreams and bubbles. AI is no exception: the technology is, in his view, fundamentally old, now running on newer hardware. “That makes robots a little smarter. But the mechanics themselves are sometimes still ancient. We need to keep focusing on kinematics, weight, reliability and deployability.”
The sector does not lack initiatives — it lacks follow-through. Liepert points to the catastrophic train crash in Spain and the Fukushima nuclear disaster as moments where robotics could have made a real difference, but did not. “After Fukushima, we all said: this must never happen again. Ten years later, little has changed. Millions are going into AI startups and invented dreams, but the real robotics breakthroughs are not materialising.”
Ferro: ‘Europe needs a strong voice — backed by real numbers’
Francesco Ferro steps into the role with a pragmatic agenda. As CEO of PAL Robotics, he works daily within the ecosystem of SMEs and startups that euRobotics serves. That proximity to the community was, for Liepert, the decisive factor in choosing his successor.
Ferro wants to raise the visibility of the European robotics sector and strengthen collaboration across the ecosystem. “It looks like everything revolves around AI and big data, but robotics does real things in the real world. We want to project that full picture — not just in Europe, but globally. With a strong voice, and with numbers that everyone can verify.”
Asked which applications are currently most promising, Ferro identifies manipulation without prior training as one of the key challenges. “Whether it is logistics, manufacturing, healthcare or agriculture — everywhere you want robots that can handle situations they have never encountered before.” He also sees teleoperation as an important accelerator: remotely operated systems allow developers to validate new AI models faster on real hardware.
On the role of euRobotics in strengthening European technological resilience, Ferro is clear. The organisation reinvents itself each year, staying close to current developments. “We are not working on a plan for the next twenty years. We are agile. That is possible because we bring together the best minds from across Europe and beyond.”
The European Robotics Forum is, in his view, the engine behind that dynamic. His message to participants in Stavanger: come with new ideas, form concrete collaborations, and leave with contacts that genuinely matter. “Collaboration remains Europe’s strongest asset for making things happen.”
The European Robotics Forum 2026 took place in Stavanger, Norway.
