BRIDGES 5.0 Policy Brief #1.

Towards making human centricity, resilience and sustainability tangible. Deliverable D1.1

Authors: Peter Oeij, Steven Dhondt, Karolien Lenaerts (December 2023)

DRAFT

The BRIDGES 5.0 project aims to help accelerate the transition towards Industry 5.0 in Europe in several ways: it proposes a conceptual framework for Industry 5.0, as well as ways to identify, measure and develop skills for Industry 5.0 among diverse groups of workers, and puts forward recommendations for companies, sectors, social partners and policymakers at EU level and in Member States.

It soon became clear that many companies and stakeholders remain unclear about the Industry 5.0 concept and its practical implications, not least because knowledge about how companies are putting its principles into practice is currently limited. Much research focuses on the impact on the skills of individdual workers rather than on the adaptation of workplace process and organisational strategies to meet the requirements of Industry 5.0.

BRIDGES 5.0 takes the company level as its point of departure to understand how decision makers in companies choose their strategy to achieve their goals, in what way they apply technology, what kind of organisational forms and production processes they design, and how that can be aligned with people working in their organisations. Technology is not a given or a fixed external factor (technological determinism), its development and implementation are ‘socially constructed’ by values, strategy, interactions and the meanings applied by key actors.

While no data have been gathered yet, and a developed conceptual framework of Industry 5.0 is not fully unfolded, this policy brief presents a reflection on understanding possible company practices and how these can be promoted by policymakers and other actors.