ARISE is pleased to highlight a new scientific publication by project partner CSIC, titled “Ontological foundations for contrastive explanatory narration of robot plans”, published in Information Sciences by Elsevier.

The article, authored by Alberto Olivares-Alarcos, Sergi Foix, Júlia Borràs, Gerard Canal and Guillem Alenyà, contributes to one of the central research directions of ARISE: enabling robots to act more autonomously while remaining understandable, transparent and trustworthy for human users.

As robots become increasingly capable of performing complex tasks in real-world environments, it is not enough for them to simply generate and execute plans. Human operators, collaborators and end users also need to understand why a robot chooses one action over another, especially when tasks involve uncertainty, adaptation or interaction with people.

This publication addresses this challenge by exploring ontological foundations for contrastive explanatory narration of robot plans. In practice, this means supporting robots in generating explanations that compare alternatives and clarify why a specific plan was selected instead of another possible option. Such explanations can make robotic behaviour easier to interpret and support more effective human–robot collaboration.

The work is highly relevant to ARISE, which develops an integrated robotic platform for autonomous task performance in demanding environments, including renewable energy and agriculture. Within these scenarios, robots must reason, plan and adapt their actions while interacting with changing environments and, in some cases, human workers.

By advancing the foundations of explainable robot planning, this research supports the broader ARISE vision of creating robotic systems that are not only autonomous, but also transparent, reliable and aligned with human expectations.

The publication is available through DOI: 10.1016/j.ins.2026.123280.