{
 "verified_on": "2026-08-28",
 "chapters": [
  {
   "id": "saturday-robotics-sf",
   "name": "Saturday Robotics · Robotics & World Models Reading Club",
   "city": "San Francisco",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 37.7749,
   "lng": -122.4194,
   "format": "paper-club",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Weekly, Saturdays 2:00–5:00 PM PT",
   "url": "https://lu.ma/saturdayrobotic",
   "platform": "Luma",
   "socials": {
    "discord": "https://discord.gg/WH7DrTHRXK",
    "x": "https://x.com/saturdayrobotic",
    "youtube": "https://www.youtube.com/@saturdayrobotic",
    "linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/company/saturdayrobotic"
   },
   "hosts": [
    "Junfan Zhu",
    "Aurora Feng"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "sessions_held": 33,
   "source_url": "https://lu.ma/saturdayrobotic",
   "format_note": "One invited keynote (30–60 min) plus an open-floor roundtable where anyone can spotlight a paper for 10–20 minutes. Pre-readings are published on the event page in advance.",
   "notes": "Travels to major conferences: CVPR Denver, SIGGRAPH LA, ICML Seoul, IROS Pittsburgh, plus Stanford and Beijing editions."
  },
  {
   "id": "ut-austin-robot-learning",
   "name": "UT Robot Learning Reading Group",
   "city": "Austin",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 30.2849,
   "lng": -97.7341,
   "format": "lab-seminar",
   "access": "university",
   "cadence": "One paper every two weeks (Spring 2026 term)",
   "url": "https://ut-robotlearning.github.io/",
   "platform": "Website",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "UT Austin robot learning community"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://ut-robotlearning.github.io/",
   "format_note": "45-minute presentation plus 15 minutes of Q&A, one presenter per session. Spring 2026 theme is robot learning × foundation models; papers drawn from CoRL, RSS and ICLR.",
   "notes": "Public schedule spreadsheet lists upcoming presenters and papers."
  },
  {
   "id": "utah-robot-learning",
   "name": "Utah Robotics Reading Group",
   "city": "Salt Lake City",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 40.7608,
   "lng": -111.891,
   "format": "lab-seminar",
   "access": "university",
   "cadence": "Termly (Summer 2026 round listed)",
   "url": "https://robot-learning.cs.utah.edu/reading_group",
   "platform": "Website + Slack",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "Kahlert School of Computing"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://robot-learning.cs.utah.edu/reading_group",
   "format_note": "Publishes explicit presenter guidelines: the presenter must state the paper's 3–5 core assumptions out loud before discussing results.",
   "notes": "Coordinated through the #robotics-reading-group Slack channel."
  },
  {
   "id": "mila-real-montreal",
   "name": "Learning for Robotics Reading Group (Mila × REAL)",
   "city": "Montreal",
   "country": "Canada",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 45.5019,
   "lng": -73.5674,
   "format": "lab-seminar",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Fridays 12:00 PM, hybrid (in person + Zoom)",
   "url": "https://github.com/montrealrobotics/learning-for-robotics-reading-group",
   "platform": "GitHub",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "Montreal Robotics and Embodied AI Lab (REAL)",
    "Mila"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://github.com/montrealrobotics/learning-for-robotics-reading-group",
   "format_note": "Hard rule: a presented paper must include a real or simulated robot deployment. Schedule and presenter rota live in the repo.",
   "notes": "Meets in Auditorium 2, building 6650 at Mila; remote link on the Mila calendar."
  },
  {
   "id": "mit-lingo",
   "name": "MIT LINGO Lab Reading Group",
   "city": "Cambridge, MA",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 42.3601,
   "lng": -71.0942,
   "format": "lab-seminar",
   "access": "lab-internal",
   "cadence": "Weekly rounds, theme chosen by group vote",
   "url": "https://lingo.csail.mit.edu/reading-group.html",
   "platform": "Website",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "MIT CSAIL LINGO Lab"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://lingo.csail.mit.edu/reading-group.html",
   "format_note": "Runs in themed rounds rather than one-off papers: the group votes a theme, then spends several weeks on papers, textbook chapters and background around it.",
   "notes": "Recent rounds include memory, energy and test-time adaptation."
  },
  {
   "id": "merantix-berlin",
   "name": "Merantix AI Campus Paper Reading Group",
   "city": "Berlin",
   "country": "Germany",
   "region": "Europe",
   "lat": 52.52,
   "lng": 13.405,
   "format": "paper-club",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Weekly, Mondays",
   "url": "https://www.merantix-aicampus.com/ai-reading-group",
   "platform": "Website",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "Merantix AI Campus"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://www.merantix-aicampus.com/ai-reading-group",
   "format_note": "General ML/AI rather than robotics-only, but consistently covers embodied and multimodal work. Open to the Berlin AI community.",
   "notes": "Hosted in person at the Merantix AI Campus."
  },
  {
   "id": "agents-lab-online",
   "name": "Agents Lab RL Reading Group",
   "city": "Online",
   "country": "·",
   "region": "Global",
   "lat": null,
   "lng": null,
   "format": "paper-club",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Regular online meetings",
   "url": "https://agents-lab.org/reading-group/",
   "platform": "Website",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "Agents Lab"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://agents-lab.org/reading-group/",
   "format_note": "Reinforcement learning focus. Participants are expected to have read the paper beforehand, and the group regularly hosts the paper's own authors as guest speakers.",
   "notes": "Fully online and open to anyone; accepts requests to present your own work."
  },
  {
   "id": "nyc-ai-paper",
   "name": "NYC AI Research Paper Reading Group",
   "city": "New York",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 40.7128,
   "lng": -74.006,
   "format": "paper-club",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Recurring, Luma-scheduled",
   "url": "https://luma.com/105yemtj",
   "platform": "Luma",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "Jacky Huang",
    "Leonard Tang",
    "Grace Kasten",
    "Alli Rummel"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://luma.com/105yemtj",
   "format_note": "General AI research rather than robotics-only. Papers are announced ahead of each session.",
   "notes": "Robotics and embodied AI papers appear regularly but are not the sole focus."
  },
  {
   "id": "sf-ai-paper-dinner",
   "name": "AI Research Paper Reading Group (SF)",
   "city": "San Francisco",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 37.7749,
   "lng": -122.4194,
   "format": "paper-club",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Recurring, Luma-scheduled",
   "url": "https://luma.com/aireadsf",
   "platform": "Luma",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "AI Reads SF"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://luma.com/aireadsf",
   "format_note": "Dinner-format discussion around three announced papers; attendees are asked to read all three in advance.",
   "notes": "Themed sessions; robotics appears alongside generative media and agents."
  },
  {
   "id": "zurich-robotics-roundtable",
   "name": "Zurich Robotics Roundtable",
   "city": "Zurich",
   "country": "Switzerland",
   "region": "Europe",
   "lat": 47.3769,
   "lng": 8.5417,
   "format": "community-night",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Quarterly, capped at 250 people",
   "url": "https://lu.ma/robotics-roundtable-5",
   "platform": "Luma",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "Founderful",
    "Roboto",
    "Edo Treccani",
    "Yves Albers-Schoenberg"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://lu.ma/robotics-roundtable-5",
   "format_note": "Panel and networking rather than paper presentations. Listed here because it is the gathering point for the Zurich robotics research community · ETH RSL, UZH RPG, the ETH AI Center and the RAI Institute all show up.",
   "notes": "Registration is curated, not automatic. Zurich has no dedicated robotics paper club yet."
  },
  {
   "id": "cmu-harp-hri",
   "name": "CMU HARP Lab HRI Reading Group",
   "city": "Pittsburgh",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 40.4433,
   "lng": -79.9436,
   "format": "lab-seminar",
   "access": "university",
   "cadence": "·",
   "url": "https://harp.ri.cmu.edu/reading-group/",
   "platform": "Website",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "CMU HARP Lab"
   ],
   "status": "archived",
   "source_url": "https://harp.ri.cmu.edu/reading-group/",
   "format_note": "Human-robot interaction focus. The lab's own page states the group is no longer active.",
   "notes": "Last listed sessions are from Summer 2024. Archive of past papers is still online and worth mining."
  },
  {
   "id": "ufl-robopi",
   "name": "UF RoboPI Robotics Reading Group",
   "city": "Gainesville",
   "country": "United States",
   "region": "North America",
   "lat": 29.6516,
   "lng": -82.3248,
   "format": "lab-seminar",
   "access": "university",
   "cadence": "Termly",
   "url": "https://robopi.ece.ufl.edu/reading_grps.html",
   "platform": "Website",
   "socials": {},
   "hosts": [
    "UF RoboPI Lab"
   ],
   "status": "dormant",
   "source_url": "https://robopi.ece.ufl.edu/reading_grps.html",
   "format_note": "Publishes a full per-term reading list, which is a useful record even between active rounds.",
   "notes": "Most recent listed round is Summer 2025; no 2026 schedule published yet."
  },
  {
   "id": "robot-learning-paper-club-zurich",
   "name": "Robot Learning Paper Club",
   "city": "Zurich",
   "country": "Switzerland",
   "region": "Europe",
   "lat": 47.3769,
   "lng": 8.5417,
   "format": "paper-club",
   "access": "open",
   "cadence": "Wednesday evenings, roughly every three weeks",
   "url": "https://lu.ma/dream-machines",
   "platform": "Luma",
   "socials": {
    "x": "https://x.com/DominiqueCAPaul"
   },
   "hosts": [
    "Dominique Paul (Dream Machines, ETH Zurich)"
   ],
   "status": "active",
   "source_url": "https://lu.ma/qb078ljc",
   "format_note": "Ten-minute talks from local researchers presenting their own work, mixed with five-minute spotlights on recent papers participants found interesting. Spots are limited, and anyone who has presented before gets preferred access · which is a neat way of making the presenting rule bite.",
   "notes": "Started because robot learning in Zurich was scattered: academia, big tech and startups all pushing the field forward, rarely in the same room."
  }
 ],
 "wanted": [
  {
   "city": "Tel Aviv",
   "country": "Israel",
   "region": "Middle East",
   "lat": 32.0853,
   "lng": 34.7818,
   "why": "Dense robotics and computer-vision talent across Technion, TAU, Weizmann and the defence-adjacent autonomy scene, but no public robotics paper club we could verify."
  },
  {
   "city": "Singapore",
   "country": "Singapore",
   "region": "Asia-Pacific",
   "lat": 1.3521,
   "lng": 103.8198,
   "why": "NUS runs several robot-learning labs (LEMA, MARMoT, the new MAGIC Lab) and Lorong AI runs a general AI community, but no open robotics paper club is publicly listed."
  },
  {
   "city": "London",
   "country": "United Kingdom",
   "region": "Europe",
   "lat": 51.5072,
   "lng": -0.1276,
   "why": "Google DeepMind, Imperial and UCL robotics groups in one city, with no open cross-institution robotics reading group listed."
  },
  {
   "city": "Tokyo",
   "country": "Japan",
   "region": "Asia-Pacific",
   "lat": 35.6762,
   "lng": 139.6503,
   "why": "Deep industrial robotics base plus strong academic labs; the reading-club format has not surfaced publicly in English."
  },
  {
   "city": "Bangalore",
   "country": "India",
   "region": "Asia-Pacific",
   "lat": 12.9716,
   "lng": 77.5946,
   "why": "Large and fast-growing applied-ML population with robotics teams at several global R&D centres."
  },
  {
   "city": "Seoul",
   "country": "South Korea",
   "region": "Asia-Pacific",
   "lat": 37.5665,
   "lng": 126.978,
   "why": "Saturday Robotics ran a private lunch here during ICML 2026, which suggests demand without a standing local chapter."
  },
  {
   "city": "Paris",
   "country": "France",
   "region": "Europe",
   "lat": 48.8566,
   "lng": 2.3522,
   "why": "Meta FAIR Paris, Inria and a growing humanoid startup cluster, with no open robotics paper club listed."
  }
 ]
}