The European Robotics Research Network (EURON) was founded in 2001 (with funds from the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission), and currently has more than 200 member institutes all over Europe (including associated countries such as Turkey, Israel or Russia). These members are all basic and applied research centres in robotics, from universities, from technology transfer institutes (such as the German Fraunhofer Gesellschaft or the French National Centre for Scientific Research), or from companies (such as ABB or KUKA). The goal of the network is to stimulate and promote research, education and technology transfer around robotics in Europe. It also serves as a central contact point to the European Commission, mainly to prepare roadmaps and funding proposals in the area of robotics research, mainly in the current Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union.
Henrik I. Christensen from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, was the network's founding president, and was instrumental in giving EURON an internationally recognized face. When Christensen moved to Georgia Tech in the United States of America in 2007, the network chose Herman Bruyninckx from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, as his successor.
The funding by the European Commission ended in April 2008, and the network continues as a community-driven organisation. Its two major new goals are to bridge the gap with the industrial robotics actors in Europe, and to improve the education and training of PhD students in robotics all over Europe.
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