The LIFEBOTS-Exchange-Extended (LEE) project brings together Norwegian companies and public organisations with academic experts to envision the future of robotics in the healthcare sector and expand the impact and reach of LIFEBOTS Exchange.

The LIFEBOTS Exchange project has already enabled collaboration between companies and academic researchers across Europe since it started in 2019. LEE enables an expansion of this work with nine Norwegian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and municipalities. They will bring together a wide range of expertise on multiple levels of gerontechnologies, from robot-seals, to design questions, innovative apps, and municipal care perspectives.

Each LEE participant will arrange at least one workshop aimed at focus areas of the LIFEBOTS project to increase their expertise in welfare technology and social robots. A larger joint event will be arranged for all LEE members, where Norwegian research, society, business and their expertise on welfare technology is in focus.

LEE participants will also be invited to all LIFEBOTS workshops and consortium meetings and will undertake work exchanges with other LIFEBOTS consortium members across Europe and South Korea. This will allow both LIFEBOTS and LEE participants to learn about cutting edge research and on-the-ground applications of robotic systems in additional and diverse contexts.

LEE will run from August 2020–January 2023 and consists of the following nine partners: