Computer Vision News - September 2022

13 Ana Lucia Cruz Ruiz and establishing the network of the right people and resources so that this can continue after we finish the project. That is one of the hats that I have. If you could break one of these barriers, which one do you break and why? I would break the barrier on evidence generation. This is one of the most difficult stages in getting your product into, for example, our national health care system. Right now, there is not enough evidence that robots are better than, for example, a surgeon. There's no substantial evidence, and they're not cost-effective. This is a very big barrier. These are two things that the national healthcare system will take into account when they want to include a product for their patients. Do you see some evidence that cost- effectiveness will be found in the end? Yes. There is evidence that certain products have a good impact on the patient, but not enough to say 100% invest in this because it will be better for X, Y, Z reasons. The reasons are spoken sometimes, but there is not enough evidence to get the government or the healthcare systems to invest, not angel investors or charities. Ana, can you tell us what you do at Imperial London? Basically, I manage projects in robotics, mainly two different projects. One focuses on healthcare robotics - DIH-HERO (Digital Innovation Hubs in HEalthcare RObotics). It is part of a bigger European project with different core partners throughout Europe, and Imperial is the core partner in the UK. The aim of that project is to try to boost healthcare robotics innovation and to facilitate the process for small andmedium- sized enterprises to get their products into the market. How is that going? Right now, we are in the process of establishing the network and the resources to do that. And we have already started working with some SMEs. We funded several projects that focused on COVID-19 and robots for helping in that area. I think with the funds and coaching we gave them, they accomplished the goals they set out to achieve. We are working with some companies and helping them financially regarding innovation and barriers in getting their products to market. But also, we're trying to think about the long term