The International Federation of Robotics, A3, VDMA Robotics + Automation, and AER Automation have signed the 2026 Barcelona Declaration, creating a permanent framework for coordinated international policy across robotics and automation.
Together, the four organisations represent more than 3,000 companies and institutions involved in industrial robots, service robotics, machine vision, system integration, components, software, and research. Their declaration converts an initiative first presented in 2025 into ten priorities for governments and regional authorities.
The programme covers national robotics strategies, investment incentives, public-sector adoption, education, employment, assistive robotics, access for smaller companies, proportionate regulation, international standards, and support for businesses moving from research into commercial production.
Each country or region is encouraged to establish a funded robotics strategy with a clearly responsible government body. Fragmented ownership across education, industry, health, employment, defence, and digital departments can otherwise leave automation policy without sufficient authority or continuity.
Tax and investment support should also extend beyond the robot itself, according to the signatories. Integration, software, workholding, training, guarding, safety controls, machine interfaces, inspection, and process redesign often account for a substantial share of total project cost.
Those supporting activities become particularly significant among smaller manufacturers implementing automation for the first time. A robot may be technically capable of performing the task, yet the installation can fail to deliver if parts are presented inconsistently, tooling is unreliable, or operators have not been included in process development.
The declaration encourages governments to deploy robotics within hospitals, laboratories, infrastructure maintenance, inspection, and public logistics. Procurement can establish early demand while giving institutions direct experience of implementation, maintenance, training, and safe operation.
Education forms another major strand, with robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence proposed for earlier inclusion in schools and vocational training. Industrial deployment depends on technicians, programmers, maintenance engineers, integrators, production specialists, and safety professionals as much as on research scientists.
Employment policy is framed around changes in task content rather than wholesale replacement. Robots can remove repetitive, hazardous, and physically demanding work, while creating additional requirements for programming, maintenance, quality, process engineering, and production control.
Assistive and care robotics broadens the programme beyond manufacturing. Surgical systems, laboratory automation, rehabilitation technology, exoskeletons, and care equipment are positioned as responses to ageing populations and pressure on healthcare workforces.
Access for small and medium-sized companies remains one of the most persistent obstacles to wider industrial adoption. Larger automotive and electronics plants maintain extensive automation teams, whereas smaller factories often face capital constraints, limited integration experience, uncertain payback, and little tolerance for disruption during installation.
Regional demonstrators, shared facilities, simplified funding, and easier-to-program systems could reduce those barriers, although practical engineering support remains essential. No-code interfaces simplify some configuration tasks, but they do not remove the need to understand safety, cycle time, tolerances, process capability, and maintenance.
The declaration also calls for regulation that recognises the different risks presented by industrial, collaborative, mobile, medical, and service robots. Connected and AI-enabled systems raise legitimate questions around cybersecurity, data, responsibility, and predictable behaviour, but fragmented national requirements can increase compliance costs without improving safety.
International standards provide a common basis for risk assessment, testing, interfaces, and system integration. Machinery and automation policy are also becoming more closely aligned through the formation of EUROPAMA, whose member associations represent processing, packaging, and production-equipment manufacturers across Europe.
The final priority concerns commercial scale-up. Europe produces extensive robotics research, but growing a manufacturer requires production engineering, certification, component supply, sales, software maintenance, integrator training, and international service coverage long before the installed base generates substantial recurring revenue.
The four organisations have committed to annual review, technical support for policymakers, progress reporting, and the inclusion of further associations. That structure provides a means of testing whether national strategies lead to investment, skills programmes, procurement, and operating installations.
Labour shortages, reshoring, workplace safety, quality requirements, and more variable demand are already pushing automation higher on industrial agendas. The Barcelona Declaration gives those pressures a coordinated policy structure, while implementation will determine whether its recommendations reach factories beyond the established high-volume users of robotics.
