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Introduction
The rapidly aging global population, combined with persistent manpower shortages and fragmented care and gerontechnology ecosystems, is intensifying pressure on long-term care and community support systems. Aging-in-Place (AiP) is strongly preferred by older adults, yet remains constrained by limited assistive infrastructure, caregiver burnout, and concerns about burdening families and services. Assistive robots—both physically assistive and socially assistive—offer a promising means to support daily living, enhance psychosocial well-being, and alleviate caregiver strain, thereby making AIP more attainable and dignified.
Nonetheless, the development, adoption, and integration of gerontechnology for AIP remain uneven worldwide, particularly with regard to user-centered design, technology acceptance, and ecosystem coordination. Key challenges include fragmented governance, ethical and privacy concerns, and designs that insufficiently reflect the lived experiences and needs of older adults and caregivers. This special issue foregrounds assistive robots as a critical component of AIP, emphasizing co-creation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and evidence-based policy. It seeks contributions that bridge research and practice to strengthen user-centered design, adoption, and governance of assistive robots in support of aging in place.
Suggested framework
The special issue welcomes conceptual, empirical, methodological, and review papers addressing (but not limited to) the following areas:
- Public policy and ecosystem development: Governance, regulatory and funding frameworks, and cross-sector partnerships for integrating assistive robots into aging-in-place and gerontechnology strategies
- Critical reviews and research agenda: Syntheses of evidence that map key barriers and facilitators and propose policy- and system-level research priorities across socio-cultural contexts
- Human-centered and participatory design: Co-creation approaches that align assistive robot design with the needs, values, and rights of older adults and caregivers in real-world service systems
- Overcoming implementation barriers: Empirical analyses of infrastructural, organizational, and socio-cultural obstacles to deployment in homes and communities, and policy levers to address them
- Wellbeing and caregiver outcomes: Evaluations of impacts on older adults' health, autonomy, and dignity and on caregiver workload and stress, including potential harms and unintended consequences
- Technology acceptance, awareness, and trust: Studies linking acceptance and trust with policy, communication, and capacity-building strategies to support equitable and sustained use
- Caregiver and frontline experiences: Investigations of role change, training needs, and day-to-day collaboration between staff and assistive robots in AIP and community-based care
- Ethics, privacy, and liability: Analyses of ethical, privacy, employment, and accountability issues, including data governance and responsibility in robot-related incidents
Guidelines for contributors
1. The length of each article is from 4,000 to 7,000 words, including structured abstract, tables, figures and references. The abstract has to be written within 250 words in four sub-sections: purpose, design/methodology/approach, findings, and originality/value.
2. Details of the manuscript requirements are available at: Author guidelines. Registration and access are available by clicking the button below.
3. Submission of manuscripts on the ScholarOne system with a copy to the guest editors
( s.lee@cpce-polyu.edu.hk ; edmund.wut@cpce-polyu.edu.hk ). https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/paap
Submission Deadline: 31 March 2027
Expected Publication: September 2028
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