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The HRI Working Group has been highly collaborative, while carrying out research irrespective of the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. First and foremost, the collaborative activities between the RAIN- teams of HRI-users and researchers of RACE, the Universities of Nottingham, Reading, Sheffield, and Manchester have been put on a national platform. The introduction of regular HRI meetings while inviting and working with colleagues from other ISCF Hubs (NCNR, FAIR-SPACE and ORCA). This large-scale team organised a set of events (notably four 1-hour webinars and one International 3-Day Workshop) which lead to further strategic collaborations between Industry and Academia for HRI. These events involved academics from all ISCF Research Hubs, along with industrial stakeholders, the nuclear regulating body (Office for Nuclear Regulation) and funding agencies. This led to the first steps of a Game Changer Initiative on an industrially approved HRI-Use Case lead jointly by The Shadow Robot Company Ltd, Sellafield Ltd. and the multi-hub HRI-team. The achievements by the group are an excellent basis on which to focus further high impact research for a demonstrator, while creating further principal HRI-research, extending the value beyond the nuclear into other sectors (e.g. medical) for HRI and engaging with other RAIN working groups. GUIDO HERRMANN LOUISE DENNIS HUMAN ROBOT INTERACTION WORKING GROUPS SAFETY CASE 12 The Safety Case working group focused on engagement with regulators and work that could be achieved in simulation throughout 2020. We have worked with Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) throughout on a set of principles for the Development and Assurance of Autonomous Systems for Safe Use in Hazardous Environments which RAIN will publish. Two group members spent time on a virtual secondment to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in America. This produced several exciting outcomes with proposals to integrate RAIN autonomy and verification technology with NIST's Canonical Robot Command Language and their Robot Agility Contest. In January 2021 we hosted a successful joint workshop with the ORCA Hub on Verification and Regulatory Issues for Remote Robotic Inspection which included significant engagement from companies such as Total, and regulatory bodies such as ONR and Lloyds Register. We intend to continue with a focus on how modular robotic architectures enable the development of autonomy in ways that help ensure reliability and assurance. Specific application will be to the RAIN Remote Inspection demonstrator but also widening our view to more general applicability which we hope to achieve both through interaction with the other Robots for a Safer World Hubs and the new Trustworthy Autonomous Systems program. To better reflect the skillsets and ambitions, this working group will now be known as the Verification and Autonomy Group.

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