Integrating Robots into the Future of Work

Recent technical advances have enabled a new family of robotic technologies, termed collaborative robots, or “cobots.” Unlike traditional “caged” industrial robots that are limited to isolated factory environments, cobots make it safe and practical for robots to work in the same environments in which people work and live. These technologies have the potential to fundamentally transform how physical work is performed in industries from manufacturing to services and in occupations ranging from manual labor to highly trained professions.

Rather than automating away human labor, cobots have the potential to enhance productivity, safety, and ergonomic conditions for human workers. Realizing this potential will require not only advancing technology to create sufficiently capable robots but also addressing human-centered questions ranging from how individuals interact with robots to how the introduction of robots affects personal life, the workplace, job satisfaction, communities and societies.

Despite these broad-ranging and interdisciplinary research challenges, robotic technology is primarily driven by scientists with deep technical backgrounds but little experience with human-centered and societal issues. On the other hand, social scientists studying how robots might affect human work may lack an understanding of the capabilities of robotic technology as well as the possibilities enabled by them.

Addressing these challenges will require a new generation of “STEM+” researchers capable of marrying technical and social-scientific knowledge and skills to carry out rigorous, groundbreaking fundamental research at the boundary of people and technology. The INTEGRATE training program provides a unique academic environment to train graduate students in STEM disciplines, including computer science, engineering, psychology, and economics, to become technologists and social scientists equipped to address the significant technical and human-centric challenges at the individual, organizational, and societal scales.

The program achieves this goal through key innovations in STEM curricula, experiential research training, professional development opportunities, community development, and program evaluation. Trainees who complete the program will help form a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers who will work across disciplinary boundaries to shape robotic technologies and the future of work in a way that maximizes individual and societal benefit.

In addition to advancing and enriching STEM training, the program makes significant societal contributions through new technologies that will improve the lives of workers; new knowledge and guidelines that will improve organizations and industries; and new recommendations that inform labor practices, technology policy, and the legal system.

The INTEGRATE program provides a unique academic environment to enrich the training of graduate students in STEM disciplines, including computer science, engineering, psychology, and economics, to address fundamental research challenges in realizing the integration of robots into the future of work. The program achieves these goals through five key components and innovations.

The first is a flexible, personalized curriculum that combines core STEM training with coursework from complementary human-centered disciplines in the form of a set of concentration areas. The second component consists of hands-on, immersive, and mentored research experiences through apprenticeship-based industry-sponsored team research projects on real-world problems, called “Expeditions.” The third element is comprised of opportunities for professional development through internships and secondments at a network of partner industrial and academic organizations.

Fourth is the forming of an INTEGRATE Research Community through weekly colloquia, an annual “INTEGRATE Week” event, and significant online presence and activity. Fifth and finally is continuous and rigorous assessment of program effectiveness in training, research productivity, and real-world relevance and impact toward program refinement. This highly interdisciplinary program brings together faculty from computer sciences; mechanical and industrial & systems engineering; psychology; educational psychology; business; law; and public affairs/economics.

Throughout the program, trainees participate in research that investigates research challenges at the micro, systems, and macro scales. At the micro level, research includes the design of novel interfaces and algorithms to enable effective teaming between people and robots; studies of how humans build working relationships with robots; investigations of the impact of working with robots on human health, safety, life and job satisfaction, and wellbeing; and development of training programs for people to effectively work with robots.

At the systems level, trainees study the integration of robotic assistants into home life, the workplace, and industrial processes; how they must be redesigned to best utilize cobots; how robots change organizations; and the changes in organizational behavior and adoption around robots. At the macro scale, trainee research teams will investigate how the introduction of robots affects human labor across demographic groups and communities and develops public policy changes that might be necessary to maximize the societal utility of robotic technologies.

In the program, trainees build research skills that integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives, knowledge, and skills as well as core professional skills in communication, teamwork, and ethical decision making.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.