CALL FOR PAPERS - IEEE RO-MAN 2025 E3D: Joint International Workshop on Ethics, Legality, Diversity, and Design in Human-Robot Interaction

Workshop website: https://sites.google.com/view/roman25e3d 

Workshop time & place: August 25th, 2025, Eindhoven, The Netherlands and online.

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Important Dates:

June 2nd, 2025 - Submission Deadline

June 30th, 2025 - Notification of Acceptance

July 14th, 2025 - Camera-Ready Paper Deadline

All deadlines are at 23:59 Anywhere on Earth (AOE) time.

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Workshop aims and scope:

The rising integration of robots across different applications means that a wide audience of people becomes a possible user base. With a wide audience comes a heterogeneous blend of people, each differing in a variety of characteristics (such as age, ethnicity, or gender). At the same time, research in human-robot interaction (HRI) has largely considered homogeneous samples for examining consequences of and prerequisites for ethical HRI. This gap in diverse research findings is accompanied by a lack of comprehensive legal frameworks for interactions with autonomous and AI-enhanced agents, as well as methodological rifts for clustering and sampling diverse audiences for studies.

This workshop attempts to get closer to closing these gaps by fostering an exchange between HRI professionals regarding a variety of topics, including: challenges in acquiring and reporting diverse samples, overcoming biases tied to WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples and mitigating discrimination in both research and practice, aligning HRI with ethical guidelines like the ALTAI framework and EU AI Act, exploring privacy, autonomy, trust, and transparency issues and investigating power dynamics, emotional fidelity, and societal biases replicated through robot interactions. 

The full-day workshop features keynote talks by industry experts and academic researchers, a presentation of paper submissions, a student methodology workshop, and a diversity panel designed to establish best practices for ethical and inclusive HRI research and practices. Attendees of all robotics-adjacent disciplines are invited to contribute to this workshop by submitting their work for presentation at the workshop (see call for papers for more details) and taking part in the interactive sessions. 

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Submission instructions:

The E3D workshop will have two submission tracks - one dedicated to regular submissions, fostering discussions on new developments in our areas of interest; and another focused on student submissions of early-stage researchers (MSc/PhD students), with the goal of providing feedback on their research methodology and experimental setup, and help them refine their research, aligning with the existing guidelines on Trustworthy AI (e.g. the ALTAI guidelines, the EU Ethical by Design AI guidelines, etc).

Regular submissions

We welcome prospective participants to submit extended abstracts (up to 2 pages, excluding references) or short papers (up to 4 pages, excluding references). Manuscripts should conform to the RO-MAN 2025 guidelines. Submissions will be checked for alignment to the workshop’s themes and goals. Accepted papers will be presented as spotlight oral presentations, or as posters (depending on the amount of submissions). 

Student submissions

We also welcome student methodology submissions (up to 4 pages, excluding references). Submissions should place a strong emphasis on methodology and experimental setup. These papers must clearly present the research problem, providing appropriate justifications and motivations, as well as propose solutions grounded in a thorough literature review. The papers should also include a detailed methodology and a comprehensive experimental setup, with an analysis of how the research problem will be aligned with the existing guidelines for Trustworthy and Ethical interaction with AI. The accepted authors will participate in the student methodology workshop, where they will have a chance to further refine their studies and discuss with experts in the field.

List of Topics

• Accessibility
• Bias in AI/ML algorithms
• Disability and Ableism
• Gender 
• LGBTQIA+ 
• Intersectional feminism
• Neurodiversity
• Race, ethnicity, or religion
• Socioeconomic diversity
• Power dynamics in HRI
• Emotional fidelity in interactions
• Privacy, autonomy, and trust
• Transparency and explainability
• Ethical and legal frameworks (e.g., ALTAI, EU AI Act)
• Data collection and reporting standards
• WEIRD sample bias
• Methodologies for inclusive HRI research

Papers should be submitted in PDF format and conform to IEEE Proceedings specifications (https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html). Overleaf users can access the template directly via the following link - https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/ieee-official.

Submissions will be evaluated according to their fit to the workshop theme, and their adherence to the scientific standards of the discipline of origin. The workshop proceedings will be made publicly available on our website. Paper acceptance requires that at least one author registers for and presents at the workshop, virtually or in person.

Paper submission instructions: 

https://sites.google.com/view/roman25e3d/call-for-contributions?authuser=0

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Workshop organizers:

The Joint International Workshop on Ethics, Legality, Diversity, and Design in Human-Robot Interaction (E3D) is a collaboration of four workshops and research groups:

Team divHRI: Researching Diversity and Inclusion in Human-Robot Interaction - Methodological, Technical and Ethical Considerations

• Lukas Erle - Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, Germany; lukas.erle@hs-ruhrwest.de
• André Helgert - Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, Germany; andre.helgert@hs-ruhrwest.de
• Carolin Straßmann - Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, Germany; carolin.strassmann@hs-ruhrwest.de
• Sabrina C. Eimler - Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, Germany; sabrina.eimler@hs-ruhrwest.de

Team ETHICA: Ethical Technology for Human Interaction with Collaborative Agents

• Ana Tanevska - Uppsala University, Sweden; ana.tanevska@it.uu.se
• Pablo Barros - University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil; pvab@ecomp.poli.br
• Ginevra Castellano - Uppsala University, Sweden; ginevra.castellano.it.uu.se

Team ECSARA: Ethics Challenges in Socially Assistive Robots and Agents: Legality, Value Orientation, and Future Design for HRI

• Adriana Tapus - ENSTA-Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris; France; adriana.tapus@ensta-paris.fr
• Jim Tørresen - University of Oslo, Norway; jimtoer@ifi.uio.no
• Zhegong Shangguan - University of Manchester, UK; zhegong.shangguan@manchester.ac.uk
• Toshie Takahashi - Waseda University, Japan; toshie.takahashi@waseda.jp

Team Ethics Issues in Human-Robot Relationships: Bridging Philosophy, Design, and Psychology

• Fan Wang - Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands; f.wang3@tue.nl
• Jiaxin Xu - Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands; j.xu2@tue.nl
• Giulia Perugia - Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands; y.feng@nwpu.edu.cn
• Yuan Feng - Northwestern Polytechnical University, China; y.feng@nwpu.edu.cn
• Baisong Liu - Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands; b.liu2@tue.nl
• Maribel PINO - Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, France; maribel.pino@aphp.fr
• Laetitia Tanqueray - Lund University, Sweden; laetitia.tanqueray@lth.lu.se