Is that Luc Steels you are referring to? I took a couple classes from him at uni a little over tem years ago. What is he doing lately that you refer to?
I don't think there has been much progress in his work though. :-) I asked him a few months ago if he saw some promising inroads to embodied cognition, but it didn't seem like it. Still it's a part of AI that's neglected on the moment.
PS: Of course there is research, just not mainstream. Der, Parisi, Tani, Bongard, Prokopenko.