When intelligence is distributed across many parts, be they robots, devices, or objects, it can be tricky for the bigger picture to emerge. Yet answering these questions is key to making collective systems that are easy to design, monitor and control.

EMERGE will deliver a new philosophical, mathematical, and technological framework to demonstrate, both theoretically and experimentally, how a collaborative awareness – a representation of shared existence, environment and goals – can arise from the interactions of elemental artificial entities.

In this effort, we will rely only on unstructured conditions that the real world demands without leveraging a pre-existing shared language between them. Our goal is to surpass the limitations and barriers of the current state-of-the-art distributed systems to produce breakthroughs and open new markets in the next generation of robotic systems.

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Latest News

Workshop Awareness in Artificial Agents

Workshop Awareness in Artificial Agents

Calendar30 July 2025

EMERGE and VALAWAI projects invite you to the Biennale in Venice, Italy, on 6-8 September, to reflect on the nature of awareness through science, technology and art.

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Publication: Human cooperation with artificial agents varies across countries.

Publication: Human cooperation with artificial agents varies across countries.

Calendar22 April 2025

In this work, EMERGE partners from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich examined people’s willingness to cooperate with artificial agents and humans in two classic economic games requiring a choice between self-interest and mutual benefit.

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Sabine Hauert at The Royal Institution.

Sabine Hauert at The Royal Institution.

Calendar26 March 2025

EMERGE partner was a recent lecturer at RI, where she explained how recent developments in robotics and AI can revolutionise our lives, and why swarm systems can be trusted. 

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Partners

The EMERGE consortium brings together the University of Pisa (Italy), Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), University of Bristol (United Kingdom), and Da Vinci Labs (France).

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