CICERO HELLAS SA

Their core work

CICERO HELLAS is a Greek technology SME working at the intersection of advanced manufacturing and human-machine collaboration. Their project portfolio shows two distinct applied engineering threads: optimizing industrial equipment reliability through prognostics and maintenance scheduling (PROGRAMS), and making human-robot shared workspaces safer and more ergonomic through exoskeletons, collaborative soft robotics, and AR/VR-based training (SHERLOCK). As a small company participating in large EU consortia, they likely bring applied industry knowledge, end-user validation, or specialized engineering integration to research teams that need real-world manufacturing context. Their focus is squarely on making smarter, safer factories — not on fundamental research.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 project (PROGRAMS, 2017) addressed the equipment side of smart manufacturing — keeping machines running reliably through prognostics and predictive maintenance, a well-established Industry 4.0 pillar. Their second project (SHERLOCK, 2018) shifted focus to the human side of the factory floor: how workers interact with robots safely, how soft exoskeletons support operators, and how AR/VR can train people to work alongside automated systems. The direction of travel is clear: from machine health monitoring toward human-centered collaborative manufacturing, reflecting the broader industry shift from automation-as-replacement to automation-as-augmentation.

CICERO HELLAS is moving deeper into human-centered robotics — collaborative workplaces, wearable assistive devices, and AI-assisted human-machine interaction — which aligns with the dominant direction of European manufacturing R&D investment in the 2020s.

How they like to work

CICERO HELLAS has participated in every H2020 project as a partner, never as a coordinator — a consistent specialist-contributor pattern rather than a project-leadership role. Despite only two projects, they have worked with 28 unique partners across 11 countries, which means both consortia were large and geographically diverse; this points to a comfortable working style inside complex multi-actor European projects. For a future partner, this means they are experienced in consortium dynamics but are unlikely to anchor or lead a project themselves.

Through just two projects, CICERO HELLAS has built direct working relationships with 28 partners across 11 countries — an unusually broad footprint for a two-project SME, reflecting their participation in large, well-funded Research and Innovation Action consortia. No strong geographic concentration is visible beyond their Greek base.

What sets them apart

Among Greek manufacturing-sector participants in H2020, CICERO HELLAS stands out for combining two complementary angles — equipment-facing prognostics and worker-facing collaborative robotics — rather than specializing narrowly in one. For consortium builders, they offer both a southern European SME perspective (often required for geographic balance in funded projects) and hands-on applied expertise in human-robot workplace safety, a topic with growing regulatory and industrial urgency. They are well-suited to projects that need an industry-side partner who can bridge research prototypes and real factory deployment.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PROGRAMS
  Their largest single EC award (EUR 218,750), addressing predictive maintenance and reliability analysis — a commercially high-value capability directly relevant to industrial clients with equipment downtime costs.
• SHERLOCK
  Their most technically rich project, combining exoskeletons, collaborative soft robotics, mobile robots, AR/VR training, and AI cognition in a single scope — demonstrating breadth across the human-robot collaboration landscape.