We call for contributions summarizing the state-of-the-art or introducing promising trends in robot-assisted surgery, both from scientific as clinical perspective; contributions discussing the relevance, challenges and impediments that are faced by surgical robotic and assistive technology developers when considering the introduction of their technology into the surgical theatre as well as for visionary works that provide arguments to brake with the current status-quo.

Specific topics of interest are amongst others

• registration, segmentation and modeling;
• motion compensation and active guidance;
• human-robot collaboration and shared control;
• workflow analysis and episode segmentation;
• machine learning and cognitive surgical robotics;
• surgical skill assessment;
• usability and user-acceptance;
• surgical training;
• novel robotic hardware and sensors;
• novel interfaces;
• standardization and regulation;
• system integration;
• safety and dependability;
• synergies and clustering;
• visionary works and roadmaps.

The workshop will also include an extensive roundtable discussion on how to best approach the new Horizon2020 framework program, and how to create “super” consortia encompassing several projects in robotic surgery to foster cooperation and experience exchange.