We are a network of partners including universities, commercial partners, and third-sector organisations who want to address the opportunities and challenges of advancing robotics and AI education. This initiative has evolved into the launch of the SERAI Network CIC (Skills and Education in Robotics and AI), a Community Interest Company aimed at securing funding through government grants and commercial sponsorship to support our on-going research. We are actively seeking new UK-based organisations to join our network while also building connections with similar international initiatives.

SERAI benefits from the support of the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Fund and the Research England Quality-Related Policy Support Fund (QR-PSF), in collaboration with the University of Sheffield. One of our key projects, Evaluating Interventions in STEM Education (ERISE), is now in its second year. ERISE focuses on investigating the impact of robotics and AI-based educational interventions designed to spark children’s interest in STEM careers, furthering our commitment to fostering future generations of innovators.

SERAI’s future strategy is to help develop better policy and practice in robotics and AI skills and education in three principal stages:

1. Generate data. 

To realise our aims, the first step is to generate good data. Evidence has the power to change lives, but there is a current dearth of evidence around skills training and technology education, especially around the kind of experiential ‘learning in a real environment’ provided by initiatives such as Learning Factories, FabLabs and robotics competitions. There is a pressing need for good data to assess the benefits of direct contact with next generation technology for workers, learners and the UK’s more disadvantaged communities. It is good data that will help us design and implement the initiatives that could enable such communities to flourish in the smart machine age – and indeed change lives.

Following on from our successful ERISE 1  project, we aim to generate research that has the potential to improve policy and practice across the generations, so that the next generation has the skills and capabilities it needs to flourish in the fast-changing world of work. While we assess the data generated by projects currently represented in the SERAI Network – and from other best practice models from around the world – we aim to continue designing projects to access evidence from further interventions, especially in libraries and schools at the heart of the UK’s more disadvantaged communities.

2. Trial and Evaluate.

SERAI will target grant funding and commercial sponsorship to enable the Network to trial and evaluate further initiatives that engage communities throughout the UK in next generation technologies such as robotics and AI. From the data generated by our ERISE project – as well as others implemented by members of the network and the best initiatives worldwide – we will design interventions for different age groups and socioeconomic communities and look to evaluate the further data that they generate. Utilising libraries will be central to our approach. Libraries are at the heart of communities and are trusted by many of the people that we would like to reach.  We will continue to engineer and support interventions in libraries with funding and by providing robotics resources in terms of hardware, software and supporting learning resources. Training librarians, as well as teachers, will also be key, so that library staff themselves will be able to help people engage with the resources that they will now be able to access. 

3. Scale up

Having evaluated all the data from the trials, other projects run by our network partners, and from best practice around the world, we will scale up our initiatives to reach the various regions of the UK.