Swarms of Simple Machines: How Europe's EMERGE Project Built Awareness

Europe’s EMERGE project, a four-year consortium funded under the European Innovation Council’s Pathfinder programme, focused on how awareness can emerge in artificial systems without building intelligence into a single “big brain.” Instead, researchers used simple agents—a swarm of small robots, body components, and connected devices—sharing information locally to create a collective representation of environment, goals and self. The work also drew a clear line between awareness and consciousness. In the project’s operational framing, awareness is the capacity to process and integrate information relevant to actions, while consciousness refers to subjective experience. The consortium included universities across Italy, Germany, the UK, France, and the Netherlands, delivering prototypes and frameworks plus follow-on ventures.