This scientometric study provides a comprehensive analysis mapping the geographic power structure that governs human-robot interaction (HRI) research. This paper analyses the geographic distribution of HRI research from 2005 to 2025 (n = 4,461 publications) using Scopus-indexed data from six core HRI venues. The findings reveal a research field characterised by profound geographic concentration and scientific oligarchy, with Europe and North America collectively accounting for 78.9% of publications and 79.2% of citations. The analysis identifies three structural paradoxes that define the field’s economy: (1) a ‘Maturation Paradox’ emerging from the tension between rapid volume growth and declining impact among established leaders; (2) a ‘Collaboration Paradox’ where international partnerships yield asymmetric benefits, favouring emerging regions while offering minimal gains for established leaders; and (3) a ‘Concentration Paradox’, revealing the contradiction between HRI’s global aspirations and a consolidated power structure where influence remains fixed in culturally similar subregions. Trend analysis raises critical questions about intellectual diversity and how geographic concentration shapes the fundamental assumptions and future trajectories of HRI research.

This study explores the impact of socio-economic and cultural factors on handwashing behaviour in schools through a robot-assisted intervention. We evaluated hand hygiene compliance across three schools, one in India and two in the UK, representing different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, using the “WallBo” social robot to guide students (n=77) through proper handwashing techniques. The results revealed that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds demonstrated greater initial learning gains, particularly in the Indian school where the novelty of the robot contributed to heightened engagement. However, these gains were not sustained post-intervention, underscoring the importance of continuous reinforcement strategies in under- resourced settings. In contrast, students from higher-income schools demonstrated more consistent retention, likely due to stronger baseline knowledge and greater familiarity with technology. These findings underscore the importance of contextualising technology-driven interventions using social robots within socio-cultural frameworks to maximise long-term impact. Additionally, this study highlights the potential of social robots as an effective educational tool in diverse school environments, provided that long-term reinforcement strategies are put in place.

In this paper we present our preliminary results from the first trial conducted with “WallBo” a robotic buddy to improve handwashing for children in schools. The one-week trial was carried out in a Scottish school with 16 pupils, aged 6-7 in an ecologically valid setting. The 1:1 interaction with WallBo resulted in 86.25% handwashing compliance, a 33.25% improvement from the baseline handwashing technique pre-WallBo training, and an overall, ≈ 35% improvement on knowledge about hand hygiene. We also report some insights about perceptions about WallBo in this paper.

The work presented in this paper reports the influence of a social robot on hand washing behaviour on school children in rural India with a significant presence of indigenous tribes. We describe the design choices of our social robot to cater the requirements of the intervention. The custom built wall mounted social robot encouraged 100 children to wash their hand at appropriate time (before meal and after toilet) using the correct handwashing technique via a poster on a wall. The results indicate that the intervention using the robot was found to be effective (40% rise) at increasing levels of hand washing with soap and with a better handwashing technique in ecologically valid settings.

We introduce “Pepe”, a social robot for encouraging proper handwashing behaviour among children. We discuss the motivation, the robot design and a pilot study conducted at a primary school located in the Western Ghats mountain ranges of Southern India with a significant presence of indigenous tribes. The study included individual & group interviews with a randomly selected sample of 45 children to gauge their perception of the Pepe robot across various dimensions including gender, animacy & technology acceptance. We also discuss some HRI implications for running user studies with rural children.

This work was conducted to investigate the technological acceptance and social perception of a robot helper in a rural context. A feasibility study was carried out in a rural village in India with 11 participants for a water carrying task using the robot. A strong cultural influence was found in terms of gender perception of the robot, most participants perceived the robot's gender as female despite of the robot having a male voice. The overall social perception and usefulness of the robot was observed to be positive. Also repeated interaction with three participants showed reduced anxiety and increased acceptability of the robot. The paper reports results from the questionnaires and also some practical challenges and sociocultural considerations to be taken in to account while running such studies “in the wild” with rural subjects.