Transdisciplinary and Participatory Research for Robotic Care Technology - Mapping Challenges and Perspectives

Abstract

The project Caring Robots // Robotic Care is a transdisciplinary research collaboration between scientific disciplines and practice partners to engage in participatory design processes for (robotic) care technology. As transdisciplinary work presents not only opportunities for new solutions, but also challenges when it comes to finding a shared language, bridging disciplinary boundaries and respecting perspectives of stakeholders, we conducted an exercise of documenting interpretations of PhD and master students with different disciplinary backgrounds regarding care, project success and challenges we experience or expect to encounter. In this short paper, we summarize the key themes that came up and complement them with the perspective of a representative of the care institution that is our research partner (Caritas Wien).