European industry has embarked on a path of digital transformation under the heading of Industry 4.0. Whilst the concept of Industry 4.0 has been driven primarily by productivity and technological considerations, industry 5.0 complements and extends the characteristics of industry 4.0 in acknowledging its vital role in society and its co-existence with emerging societal trends.
Three changes are required.
- Firstly, industrial companies are a part of society, hence they share in the responsibility for quality of life of their employees, users and stakeholders. Work and workplaces should enhance responsibility, personal development, an ergonomic and healthy environment and participation.
- Secondly, industry itself must become greener and more circular. These changes also require new management and workforce skills.
- Thirdly, resilience on the level of firms, sectiors and global value chains leads to investing in competences and skills. Finding new synergies between the interests of companies and their employees is a priority if industry is to become more resilient in the face of an increasingly volatile world.
The AIT Center for Innovation Systems & Policy is part of a HEU research project striving for a further conceptual development and empirical grounding of industry 5.0. Apart from a deepened conceptual understanding we engage in statistical analyses of job transformations and changing skills requirements of future industry and employ novel methods of web scraping to collect data on new job profiles. “Furthermore, we develop building blocks for future-oriented policy-making applying and merging qualitative and quantitative approaches and methodologies” says AIT project coordinator Doris Schartinger.