総務省の「戦略的情報通信研究開発推進事業（国際標準獲得型研究開発）平成28年度 研究開発課題（ICTロボット）」において、CARESSESプロジェクトが採択されました。本プロジェクトは欧州のHorizon 2020 SC1-PM-14 EU-Japan cooperation on Novel ICT Robotics based solutions for active and healthy ageing at home or in care facilitiesとの日欧共同研究事業です。総務省の発表によりますと、本件の応募数は合計35件でした（採択率は2.8%）
CARESSESプロジェクト（*Culture Aware Robots and Environmental Sensor Systems for Elderly Support/高齢者支援に資する文化知覚ロボット環境システムの研究開発）
The groundbreaking objective of CARESSES is to build culturally competent care robots, able to autonomously re-configure their way of acting and speaking, when offering a service, to match the culture, customs and etiquette of the person they are assisting. By designing robots that are more sensitive to the user’s needs, CARESSES’ innovative solution will offer elderly clients a safe, reliable and intuitive system to foster their independence and autonomy, with a greater impact on quality of life, a reduced caregiver burden, and an improved efficiency and efficacy. The need for cultural competence has been deeply investigated in the Nursing literature. However, it has been totally neglected in Robotics. CARESSES stems from the consideration that cultural competence is crucial for care robots as it is for human caregivers. From the user’s perspective, a culturally appropriate behavior is key to improve acceptability; from the commercial perspective, it will open new avenues for marketing robots across different countries.
CARESSES will adopt the following approach. First, we will study how to represent cultural models, how to use these models in sensing, planning and acting, and how to acquire them. Second, we will consider three (physically identical) replicas of a commercial robot on the market and integrate cultural models into them, by making them culturally competent. Third, we will test the three robots, customized for three different cultures, in the EU (two cultural groups) and Japan (one cultural group), on a number of elderly volunteers and their informal caregivers. Evaluation will be conducted through quantitative and qualitative investigation.
To achieve its groundbreaking objective, CARESSES will involve a multidisciplinary team of EU and Japanese researchers with a background in Transcultural Nursing, AI, Robotics, Testing and evaluations of health-care technology, a worldwide leading company in Robotics and a network of Nursing care homes.
[日本側受託者]
総務省課題：戦略的情報通信研究開発推進事業（国際標準獲得型研究開発）平成28年度 研究開発課題（ICTロボット）
[EU側共同受託者]
Horizon 2020 Topic: Horizon2020 SC1-PM-14 EU-Japan cooperation on Novel ICT Robotics based solutions for active and healthy ageing at home or in care facilities
総務省による結果発表及びプロジェクト詳細は下記のリンクよりご確認ください。
総務省：http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/s-news/01ryutsu02_02000150.html
Cordis:http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/206852_en.html
日本語によるプロジェクトJAISTのプレスリリースをご覧ください。