An approach from the perspective of innovation communication and R&I policy.
Marketing in particular is suspected of quickly creating new terms, only using them for a short time and then coming up with something new. This suspicion arises with the term Industry 5.0, which the EU Commission has come up with as an extension of Industry 4.0. At the time, the trade magazine Maschinen Markt also described the term Industry 5.0 as "nonsense" [1]. In the summer of 2024, the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems (IKS) [2] admitted that Industry 4.0 had led to the intelligent, optimized and flexible networking of machines and processes in production. However, increasing pressure to innovate coupled with digitalization, AI technologies and machine learning would bring with it new tasks that describe sustainable and resilient production as a guiding principle that focuses on people. And this is what at least the EU Commission would describe as Industry 5.0. So does the term "Industry 5.0" make sense? The answer to this question cannot be clearly formulated, but it is reasonable to conclude that terms such as "Industry 5.0" are necessary elements of transformation processes.
" Terms such as 'Industry 5.0' are necessary elements of transformation processes "
Innovation and transformation: communication as the basis
Sectors and industrial companies are facing challenges due to changing markets, new market players, shorter innovation cycles for technologies or changing (geo)political conditions, but also due to changing social priorities. In general, circumstances or events that need to be solved or overcome are referred to as problems. And what is identified as a problem to be solved is the result of a social, societal or specialist and industry-specific negotiation process that is influenced by different publics, political, economic and social actors and mediated by media systems and intermediary institutions. However, it is not only problem definitions that play a role in this negotiation process; goals, desirable or avoidable scenarios and conditions are also outlined and discussed. Whether a solution to a problem is an innovation, how the transition from the current to the desired state can be shaped as a transformation, requires communicative means that make it possible to imagine possibilities, risks, opportunities or side effects and thus make them discussable. In research, the term "socio-technical futures" has become established for this purpose, allowing the actors involved to discuss ideas about the future, paths to achieving goals and acceptable or unacceptable side effects. Changes have a goal, and both the necessity and the goal of this transformation also require visualization and description.
" An attempt has been made to summarize industrial strategy, innovation policy and sustainability in a common term "
In research on innovation communication, there is a consensus that innovation is what is considered innovative and that innovations therefore arise in people's minds, and it is important to reach them under the conditions of the media society [3]. In the case of so-called emerging technologies or the emergence of new fields of technology in general, no precise definitions give the starting signal, but rather these technologies and fields of technology emerge in mostly iterative processes of research, development and discussion. Examples include the field of nanotechnology or currently the field of artificial intelligence. However, concepts, visualizations and narratives are required in order to be able to agree on goals, paths, desirable things or things to avoid. This becomes all the more important when impacts are not limited to sectors or markets, but affect societies as a whole or are either beneficial or detrimental to certain population groups. In democratic, pluralistic societies, this requires at least the opportunity for information and ideally also the opportunity to participate in the negotiation process. This presupposes that societies have concepts that enable them to talk to each other without complex and precise definitions.
"Industry 5.0" as an idea and concept - the EU's mission orientation
You can't buy "Industry 4.0". Unfortunately, it may have to be said afterwards, as Prof. Birgit Vogel-Heuser from the Technical University of Munich [4] had perceived the desire of many players in various industries, but also in politics, as such in 2017. However, this term was and is important to be able to agree on a concept, an idea, an approach to which no product characteristics can be ascribed. The Industry 4.0 concept was very focused on the digitalization of production, data exchange in the value chain and digital business models. From the EU Commission's perspective, it lacked a normative orientation, not least with regard to sustainability and transformation. The "green gap" in the "Industry 4.0" concept was then taken up by the EU Commission in the debate on innovation and industrial policy. The EU Commission focused early on green technologies, sustainability and innovation as a strategy for re-industrialization, but addressed these as the Green Deal or Green Industry. Industrial resilience played an important role in the Industry 4.0 concept, but without addressing the aspects of sustainability and environmental compatibility. After the EU Commission identified the restructuring of European economies and the challenges posed by globalization, digital transformation and changing geostrategic technology policies as an important field, an attempt was made to combine industrial strategy, innovation policy and sustainability into a common term and to address not only environmental and green aspects but also the effects on society and social structures, which ultimately led to the concept of "Industry 5.0", which can be seen as a social extension of the digital transformation.
However, this is encountering a heterogeneous landscape of EU member states, which is also reflected in the discussion of Industry 5.0 in the respective cultural contexts. In addition to the Netherlands and Austria, Sweden and Denmark discussed, researched and implemented sustainable economic development early and intensively. It is noticeable that in Sweden and Denmark in particular, "Industry 5.0" is currently being discussed less with regard to sustainability goals, but rather focuses on the aspect of human-centeredness and primarily on collaborative robots and their integration into production, i.e. human-machine interaction. This indicates that the integrating effect of the EU Commission's concept may reach its limits in view of the specific features in the member states.
However, "Industry 5.0" can also be seen as a reaction to an impulse from the industrialized nation of Japan. In his opening speech at Cebit 2017 in Hanover, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe outlined his government's program for a Society 5.0 - the development of Japan into a "Super Smart Society". A programme that considers digitalization in its disruptive significance for society as a whole and was seen as an approach to overcoming the so-called Grand Challenges such as demographics, climate change or the security situation in Asia.
" 'Industry 5.0', however, attempts to not only focus on industrial policy, but to tackle the challenges systemically "
With the concept of "Industry 5.0", the EU Commission is responding to the challenges with its own approach, which can also be seen as an impetus for "Society 5.0". Grand challenges such as demographics, migration, climate change or the security situation require a response that cannot focus solely on technologies. Modern societies that follow the innovation paradigm also have a need for orientation. Concepts such as "Industry 5.0" emphasize that it must be possible to shape technological developments with foresight and create an orientation framework. "Industry 5.0" focuses on the three interlinked core values of people-centricity, sustainability and resilience and is therefore not a technology-driven revolution, but a values-driven initiative that drives technological change with a specific goal. "Industry 5.0" relies on social heterogeneity in terms of values and acceptance, measurement of ecological and social value creation, participation and transparency of customers or interest groups and NGOs, interdisciplinarity of research disciplines and system complexity as well as ecosystem-oriented innovation policy with an outcome orientation. With the goal of human-centricity, the term "Industry 5.0" includes a topic that has accompanied the discourse on digitalization in the factory and the debates on Industry 4.0 from the very beginning: the factory without people. Early on, protagonists of the digitalization of factories in Germany tried to integrate people into their digitalization concept as the "conductor of the value chain" in order to counteract dystopian narratives. However, after an initially intense debate, the topic of "Industry 4.0" took a back seat to the focus on the implementation of digitalization and its technical implications, such as cybersecurity or data management. In the context of "Industry 5.0", the topic appears as collaborative robotics, as a facilitating tool or as an answer to the shortage of skilled workers and therefore less threatening and more supportive. "Industry 5.0" cannot be viewed in isolation. Industrial policy has been at the heart of the EU Commission's recent policy proposals in order to achieve climate targets, to be more resilient to external shocks and to maintain or re-establish a leading role for the European economy in changing market environments. However, "Industry 5.0" attempts not only to focus on industrial policy, but also to tackle the challenges systemically.
Research on industrial policy and on policy fields of research and innovation policy agrees that concepts, empty signifiers or narratives such as "Industry 5.0" are necessary to enable societies and associations such as the European Union to debate common objectives and transformation paths, the acceptance or rejection of the effects of measures. The focus on missions and the SDGs (the Sustainability Development Goals) flows into regulatory policy and therefore also has an impact on companies that not only respond to legal requirements in sustainability reports, but also position themselves vis-à-vis employees, junior staff and customers in their local environment. Corporate social responsibility or corporate citizenship are concepts with which companies respond to the awareness and the resulting requirements that they are not only part of industries and markets, but also part of society and must interact with it.
"Industry 5.0" necessary for politics - but also for companies?
This brief analysis shows that "Industry 5.0" marks a paradigm shift in the EU Commission's industrial policy, which should be seen as a response to the shortcomings of previous policies. The orientation towards values and the achievement of goals is decidedly normative and thus a shift from technological paradigms to a mission orientation that is guided by the SDGs, but also keeps in mind the idea of reindustrializing the EU member states through green manufacturing processes. In its recent publication, the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the EU Commission described "Industry 5.0" as a "game changer". According to the group of experts, the concept is an opportunity to future-proof European industries and the innovation ecosystem. Resilience as a goal of "Industry 5.0" is referred to in the latest publication with regard to the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
These backgrounds, but also the evolving demands on companies, require a dialog between companies and their environment. Last but not least, digitalization is changing many aspects of communication: stakeholders are exchanging information about companies and organizations faster and more intensively. In the digital age, communication takes place in communication arenas. This is primarily due to intensified and accelerated competition and the increasing loss of companies' authority to interpret the discourse relating to them. This is why social legitimacy, the "licence to operate", is becoming increasingly important and even existential for organizations and companies. As with "Industry 4.0", the term or concept of "Industry 5.0" offers the opportunity to ensure an exchange between different stakeholders about goals, transformation paths, opportunities and risks.
Of course, the formulation with the version numbers seems as if the discussion of Industry 6.0 or at least Industry 5.1 could be called for the day after tomorrow. There are suggestions in industrial policy research that "Industry 4.0" should also take into account the UN's sustainability goals and not just focus on production and manufacturing. Even if resource efficiency is an aspect of Industry 4.0, this does not automatically lead to environmental relief, contrary to many marketing claims; rather, as research shows, Industry 4.0 concepts have both a positive and negative impact on the environment, without the overall ecological effects being foreseeable on balance. What's more, the vision of "Industry 4.0" has so far been associated with technology-centered and growth-oriented ideas, with resource efficiency appearing more as an unintended side effect. From the perspective of the Association of German Engineers, however, the green economy and Industry 4.0 can easily be brought together via the concept of resilience. However, the VDI's latest project "Future Germany 2050" also deals with goals, visions and scenarios of technologies, society and the environment - in other words, with elements that are integrated into a discourse on "Industry 5.0".
Instead of a conclusion
Terms such as "Industry 4.0", but also "Industry 4.0", show that socio-technical visions, as they can be described and imagined using such terms, are necessary in order to be able to agree on transformations, goals, desirable states or effects to be avoided. However, it also became clear that terms are interpreted and used differently in different countries. There is a lack of an instrument for communication within the EU. This is where "Industry 5.0", with the impetus provided by the EU Commission, can be an opportunity to engage in the necessary exchange with stakeholders in business, society and politics in order to discuss goals and paths in the face of the Grand Challenges. The new elements such as resilience, sustainability and future viability are given little or no consideration in "Industry 4.0". The "Industry 5.0" concept can be helpful for the dialog between companies and their environment, with the various players in the EU, if the discourse players engage with it.
The question remains as to whether this can be as successful as Industry 4.0. This process, the concept or the term were also controversial at the beginning, rejected as marketing or questioned as to their meaningfulness with the reference "we've done it all before". The promoters Wahlster and Kagermann, who are not visible in "Industry 5.0", have certainly contributed to its success, which makes it difficult to personify it at present, given that the new commission is currently being constituted. It also remains to be seen whether the public and target groups in Germany will respond positively to the new term "Industry 5.0" after the debate about "Industry 4.0", which is certainly not yet over. And: the new legislative period of the EU Commission has replaced the Green Deal with the "Plan for Sustainable Prosperity and Competitiveness in Europe" without repeating the term "Industry 5.0". Researchers will be watching this with interest.
Literature:
[1]https://www.maschinenmarkt.vogel.de/der-begriff-industrie-50-ist-unsinn-a-9c60781d0691885d0ed8798d30c8dd51
[2]https://safe-intelligence.fraunhofer.de/artikel/zukunft-der-produktion-industrie-5-0
[3]Ansgar Zerfaß and Kathrin Möslein 2009
[4]https://www.tum.de/aktuelles/alle-meldungen/pressemitteilungen/details/33648
- Banholzer, V. M. (2023). Industry 5.0 as a social extension of Industry 4.0? The EU's industrial policy attempt to integrate social issues conceptually and communicatively. In: Schmidt, C. M., et al. (eds) Social issues in corporate and business communication. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-658-40705-6_1
- Banholzer, V. M. (2021). Is "Industry 4.0" the same as "Industry 4.0"? The importance of cultural contexts for international business communication: A comparison of technology terms in Germany and Norway. In: Matrisciano, S., Hoffmann, E., Peters, E. (eds) Mobility - Economy - Communication. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32370-7_5
