CORA 2026 — Conference on Robots and Automation

CORA 2026, the Conference on Robots and Automation, takes place on 28–29 September 2026 at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics in Kiel, Germany, run in cooperation with the University of Hamburg. Now in its fifth edition, CORA is an economics-focused conference examining the economic impact of robots, automation and artificial intelligence, and serves as a recognised forum linking academic researchers with the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the field's main data provider.

Rather than a hardware or engineering showcase, this is a scholarly gathering where economists present new research on the micro- and macroeconomic consequences of automation and AI: labour markets, productivity, firm-level adoption and the broader structural effects of deploying robots. Researchers across all areas of economics are invited to present results and debate future directions, and the close tie to IFR data gives the programme an empirical grounding that is unusual for the topic. The published participation fee covers workshop materials, refreshments and a conference dinner. For economists, policy analysts and data-minded researchers wanting to understand how automation and AI reshape economies — rather than how the robots themselves are built — CORA offers a focused, evidence-driven two days in northern Germany. It is a distinctive complement to the many purely technical robotics conferences.