The fourth industrial revolution has implications in all parts of the economy and involves technologies from various fields. So to understand the future of work of the Industry 4.0 and to support Portuguese companies and policymakers managing the transition, researchers across Portuguese institutes are working on areas such as:
Taking a collaborative approach, the initiative on the Future of Work and the Fourth Industrial revolution allows us to join forces on this topic and create better insights.
Our initiative Future Work Portugal, launched by IN+/IST, CEiiA and QSR, intends to gain insights of the Portuguese reality, by answering questions along three dimensions:
Technology
Which technologies will shape the future of work?
Employment
How can employees and companies prepare for changing skill requirements?
Policy
How can policymakers shape the future of work?
What are the risks and opportunities through a changing working environment?
Understand Industry 4.0 in Portugal
Find answers to challenges
Implement solutions
In the week of 21-25 October we welcomed in Portugal the researchers of the Work of the Future initiative, which stems from a collaboration between researchers from the MIT Industrial Performance Center and Organizational Engineering Group (NEO) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This visit had the objective of holding a workshop focused on the Future of Work theme, where preliminary results could be presented and discussed.
In addition to the workshop, visits to OGMA and CeiiA took place, as well as a Roundtable on digital technologies and the organization of work in manufacturing companies, including technological developments and consequent demographic challenges and changes in the skills profiles sought. Roundtable sessions discussed the results of the Future of Work projects as well as the impact of industry 4.0 on employment in Portugal, with sessions presented by Timothy Sturgeon (MIT) and João Jesus (Air Centre).
The 18th annual Technology, Management, and Policy (TMP) Doctoral Consortium took place at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. During two days, PhD students in the field of technology, management, and policy had the opportunity to present their work to an international group of researchers. Joana led a session on the Future of Work, where Benjamin presented his work “How will technologies of the fourth industrial revolution shape firms and employment.”
In this roundtable, we put together industry and academia, to discuss employment challenges through modern technologies. After brief presentations of industry cases or research findings, we will discuss and debate in an exclusive informal setting. The discussion is structured along two topics. First, the discussion focusses on how technology-driven employment challenges can be addressed; second, case examples will serve as a basis to discuss how the challenges differ between industries.
For information on our initiative and opportunities to cooperate or to join us as a researcher in the field of Industry 4.0 and Future of work. Please reach out to us if you are interested.
