President’s Report by Takayuki Ito
Strong Start into the Year
Mar 27, 2025 — The year 2025 started with a whole bunch of activities for the IFR. In January, we published the top 5 trends in robotics from IFR's perspective and received quite a bit of press attention for this. This was followed by an update of the "World Robotics R&D Programs" that are kindly compiled by Prof. Jong-Oh Park and his team with a corresponding press release in February.
In the first two month of the year, we also conducted elections to the IFR General Assembly. These have become necessary as the General Assembly had approved changes to the IFR Constitution back in October last year. As a result, more seats for the robot supplier members within IFR are available, for the three subgroups industrial robot manufacturers, component suppliers and integrators, and, - for the first time - also for service robot manufacturers. Service robot suppliers now also have their own Committee, upgraded from the previous Working Group.
Just in time for International Women's Day on March 8, we also were able to announce "IFR's Women in Robotics - 10 Women Shaping the Future of Robotics in 2025". The decision was even harder to take than in the previous year, as we received so many great nominations. We are happy that we are able to raise awareness for the women active in our sectors, serving as role models for the next generation and we are happy to see the positive impact the recognition has on each and every one of them. Congratulations to all of them.
In the next quarter, we will present preliminary statistics for 2024 at the Automate show and the automatica fair. Both events will also feature an IFR Executive Roundtable:
- "The Trends & Technologies Driving the Industry" will be in the focus at the Automate roundtable (10:30 – 11:45 hrs on Wednesday, May 14 in Detroit)
- "Global Robotics Market: How can Europe step up its game?" will be the theme at automatica (13:00 – 14:00 hrs on Wednesday, June 25 in Munich)
And we are glad to share the call for presentations to the ISR, the International Symposium on Robotics, which will be held in Seoul, Korea, on 5-6 November 2025 during the ROBOTWORLD fair. The IERA Award 2025 will also be presented during this event (find more details below).
We hope to see many of you for any of these occasions.
Best regards
Takayuki Ito
