OCTOPUS aims at investigating and understanding the principles that give rise to the octopus sensory-motor capabilities and at incorporating them in new design approaches and technologies for building physically embodied, soft-bodied, hyper-redundant, dextrous artefacts. To this purpose, a robotic artefact will be built in OCTOPUS that can locomote in water over a variety of terrains, explore narrow spaces, grasp objects and manipulate them effectively. The grand challenge that this IP will pursue is the design and development of the ICT and robotics technologies allowing the building of an embodied artefact, based broadly on the anatomy of an octopus, and with similar performance in water, in terms of dexterity, speed, control, flexibility, and applicability.