How do we teach ROS most effectively at an undergraduate level, and how do we ensure that graduates are leaving university with the right skills to "hit the ground running" in a robotics career?
This workshop will bring together ROS educators and industry experts to tackle the challenge of bridging these two domains. One of the outcomes of last year's Education Workshop was that a community should be established to share resources, approaches, best practices and industry requirements. A further aim of this workshop will therefore be to co-create an actionable roadmap, defining communication pipelines, and measurable milestones to sustainably grow this initiative and systematically close the industry-readiness gap.
This workshop addresses the disconnect between undergraduate robotics curricula and the industry-relevant skills required for a robotics career. Building directly on the momentum and feedback from last year's Education Workshop (see here), this session will aim to move from high-level discussion to tangible and sustained action.
Key Aims:
This workshop is for:
The above audiences can expect to take away from this workshop the following:
| Session | Time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome & Introductions | 09:30 - 09:45 |
Introduction to the workshop, the agenda, and the key goals. This will also include an introduction by Ingo Keller. Here, Ingo will set the scene; discussing the current mismatches between industry and academia, and why an active community is vital to bridging the gaps. |
| Lighting talks: "Perspectives from the Field" | 09:45 - 10:45 |
Short talks by colleagues from both academia and industry (see the list of presenters above). These talks will highlight the realities and challenges faced on both sides, followed by an open Q&A. Academic perspectives will include topics such as:
|
| Identifying topics for further discussion | 10:45 - 11:00 |
The focus of discussions should be around community, governance and specific actions that can support the main aims of the workshop. Having heard different perspectives from our presenters - and bringing in further opinions from attendees (as submitted in advance via a pre-workshop survey) - participants will then have the chance to vote on the topics that are most important to them. This voting will then be used to establish 3 or 4 key topics (all on the theme of closing the skills gap) for in-depth discussion (in breakout groups) after the coffee break. |
| Coffee Break | 11:00 - 11:30 | Morning Tea & Coffee break for all conference attendees @ JMCC Centro. |
| Breakout group discussions | 11:30 - 12:30 | Having established the key topics for discussion around closing the education / industry skills gap, participants will then choose a breakout group to join and discuss their chosen topic in more depth. Groups will be brought back together for the final 15 minutes of this section to present the outcomes. |
| Establishing a Roadmap & Next Steps | 12:30 - 13:00 |
What will we aim to achieve between now and ROSCon UK 2027? Here we will formalise some actionable milestones to be achieved throughout the next year and assign owners to these. |
Please find more details on the ROSCon UK 26 website: https://roscon.org.uk/2026/ .
