On July 14, in Kyiv a landmark event, without exaggeration, tool place: the first conference on Industry 5.0 topic in Ukraine. The event was held as part of the Swiss-Ukrainian project “Strengthening MSME Business Associations in Ukraine (Phase II)”, implemented by the United Nations Development Program in Ukraine (UNDP) together with the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine and with the support of the Swiss government.
General context of the Conference
The context of the conference was determined by several factors:
- First, the overall goal was to involve a wide range of existing Industry 4.0 stakeholders in the 5.0 topic. These include industrial enterprises, developers, integrators, product manufacturers, universities and also business associations from these categories. Looking ahead, we note that more than 10,000 online engagements and 350 registrations (both online and offline) are a good indicator that meets the set goal.
- The second factor and task is to fit into the context of European I5.0 with Ukrainian realities, and this seemed to be quite a difficult task. Most of the country’s enterprises are at the 3.0 level, and there is a small number of industries that carry out digital transformation processes (4.0). It is also difficult to talk about any state policies supporting smart industries, because they exist only on paper. Therefore, one of the most important challenges that the organizers considered is who to talk to and what to talk about in the context of 5.0.
- After all, the third factor that always accompanies complex topics: how to convey this complexity in a simpler, clearer way and still find points of contact.
Here APPAU has done a lot of preliminary work, breaking down the complex topics of 5.0 into “simple” parts and which were methodically worked out before the conference at 5 online meetings, webinars, as well as in a series of publications. The “cherry” on this cake was the planned signing of the Industry 5.0 Manifesto – it was also developed preliminary by the UСA working expert group.
Speeches and panel discussions
The program was very busy, as the conference participants later noted in their reviews. Among the main topics, theses and speeches, we note the following.
Sean O’Reagain, Deputy Director of Research and Innovation of the European Commission gave an overview of EU policy, focusing on key principles and directions for action. Mr. Sean vividly demonstrated directions of development in which involvement of governance 5.0 is necessary. It is about reducing and recycling industrial waste, developing new skills in STEM and entrepreneurship, better employee engagement, social security, stimulating the green transition, etc.
The speech of the deputy director of the Polish state agency FPPP (Foundation of Future Industry of Poland) Mariusz Hetmanchuk was a vivid demonstration of how state can influence development of smart industry. For 4 years, FPPP has been supporting a number of basic elements and tools for development of industrial ecosystems – these are 18 regional centers of Industry 4.0, financial support tools, a network of 20+ regional-industry DIHs, SME awareness and education campaigns, SME diagnostic tools, management of international projects in this area, etc. Similar instruments at the state level are practically absent in Ukraine.
Activities and mission of EIF Manufacturing were presented by the manager of the company and the head of the UCA Internationalization department, Olga Trofymova. EIT Manufacturing brings together the fields of education, innovation and business creation around the Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS). Olga talked about the company’s goals until 2030, namely: 30% of use of materials should be cyclical, 60% of sustainable production practices, creation of 360 new solutions, €325M of investments attracted by EIT enterprises, 50,000 people trained and increased competence or retrained, creation and support of 1000 startups. EIF Manufacturing helps SMEs grow, get funded, innovate, learn and become competitive.
Oleksandr Yurchak, CEO at APPAU and coordinator of the Ukrainian movement “Industry 4.0 in Ukraine” briefly presented the results of development since 2018 and directions of action for the next period. In particular, Oleksandr emphasized the need to implement tools 4.0-5.0, which were included in the National Economic Strategy 2030, but which was never launched. It is about supporting networks of DIHs and innovation clusters, industry roadmaps and accelerators, and a network of independent experts.
Michael Rada from the Czech Republic, the founder of the Industry 5.0 movement, spoke about the main principles, technologies and paradigms of thinking. Starting his presentation, he mentioned the beginning of the war in Ukraine and noted that Industry 5.0 could not stop the war, but it would help get rid of its consequences without wasting time. Mike paid a lot of attention to the issue of pollution of the planet and presented the improved rule of 3R as 6R – RECOGNIZE, RECONSIDER, REALIZE + REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.
Innovation Pitching 5.0 brought together 5 APPAU innovators – IT-Enterprise, AIM Group, a-Gnostics, Waste Ukraine Analytics and Smart.Zavod. Oleksiy Solntsev, the CEO of the latter company, who presented modern solutions of additive hybrid production, received the most questions.
From the 4 panel discussions we will single out the most important one – about Smart.Industry state policies
The best policy makers of industrial and hi-tech policies have gathered here. State was represented by Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Development Dmytro Kysylevsky and Head of the Reform Support Team of the Ministry of Economy, Denys Shemyakin. Volodymyr Vlasyuk, director of “Ukrpromzovnishekspertyza”, director of the UCA Analytical Center, Volodymyr Panchenko, head of the UCA Resource Center “Smart.City”, head of the Kyiv hi-tech cluster Anatolii Dolynny and head of the UCA innovation committee, president of AEI Ivan Kulchytskyi participated from the expert environment.
The discussion demonstrated a strong consensus of business and government on industrial policy priorities.
Representatives of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ministry of Education and Science, Kyiv DIHs (Digital Innovation Hubs), representatives of international donor organizations, a number of universities, regional development agencies, clusters of Ukraine and other partner structures.
Signing of the Industry 5.0 Manifesto
Signing of the Manifesto on transition to Industry 5.0 became one of the key events of the July 14 conference.
36 organizations (including 25 clusters, 5 universities, regional development agencies and public organizations) declared their readiness to adhere to the principles in:
- Formation of further strategies and development plans.
- Work on post-war reconstruction projects.
- Restoration and development of production in the new industrial paradigm of Industry 5.0, etc.
You can read more about the document here.
The principles of Industry 5.0 change approaches of enterprises and significantly better balance and improve their response to the challenges of social, environmental and economic development. The manifesto was prepared by the working group of experts of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance (UCA),
The signing of the Manifesto is a significant event not only for UСA or APPAU, but also for all sectors and industrial hi-tech communities. We started in a similar way in 2016, when the national movement “Industry 4.0 in Ukraine” was launched (on the basis of Charter 4.0), and in 2019, when the Industry4Ukraine platform was created with its own Manifesto. A significant difference this time is the considerable dominance of Ukrainian clusters, their much greater consolidation among themselves and with the expert environment. This network becomes a real market force capable of implementing the slogans of smart industries – and this is our hope.
OLEXANDR YURCHAK, UCA CEO, GENERAL DIRECTOR AT APPAU
In this part of the event, the Memorandum on cooperation with the Lviv and Volyn regional development agencies (RDA) was also signed. Both RDAs are interested in development of clusters, and the Volyn RDA has already initiated the “Western Polissia” cluster initiative.
UCA and APPAU invite other business associations, SMEs, government institutions, leading universities, analytical agencies and large enterprises to consolidate in a joint movement on the transition to Industry 5.0. All you have to do is sign the Manifesto online here.
The main conclusions and insights of the event
The signing of the memorandum demonstrated a high level of consolidation within the UСA, — most of the signatories were clusters of this business association. It is obvious that UСA now occupies a leading position in this area and will only increase the pace of movement towards Industry 5.0.
The second important observation and feedback from the event is that the participants highly appreciated the content of the conference, but even more so the networking opportunity. This suggests that there is a real lack of such events, which connect real sectors of the economy with ministries, developers, integrators, scientists, and which are properly formed on important topics of innovative development.
Oleksandra Pravdyva from the DIH of KAU offers working events on the topics of Industry 5.0 every quarter. This somewhat disproves the thesis that innovation is not needed because market demand has dropped to zero during the war.
The conference showed the opposite – it is necessary and possible to stimulate demand thanks to joint efforts, including such measures.
Instead, discussions on Smart.Industry tools and policies turned out to be controversial. On the one hand, we have seen strong progress and, in fact, a complete consolidation of all categories, led by representatives of the upper echelons of power regarding the priority of the processing industry. There is no need to convince someone that it is important. However, most of the speakers practically ignored the question of the balance of tools and institutions that relate to the development of innovative industrial ecosystems. In the presentations of the representatives of the UCA Committee of Innovations (Ivan Kulchytsky, chairman of the committee and Oksana Krukevych, the Ministry of Education and Sciience), and later in the final presentation of the UCA, these emphases on the directions of action were present.
In particular, UCA emphasizes the priority of DIHs, industry accelerators and incubators, networks of experts, and these things have long been included in NES-2030 and other national-level strategies. But something else is telling: neither business representatives nor industrial policy makers even mentioned them. This is despite the fact that Mariusz Kowalczuk’s Polish presentation was very revealing for understanding our gaps in this area. Therefore, it is obvious today that from the traditional Industry 2.0-3.0 to 5.0, we still have a lot of work to do in advocating and lobbying the interests of smart industries.
The exchanges between the innovators of Industry 4.0-5.0 and representatives of the Ministry of Defense looked very positive. There are certain agreements on continued cooperation in this area. Serhiy Loboyko, who presented the Ministry of Defense, says that the Ministry is highly willing to cooperate.
Regarding flagship innovation programs and projects like I4Trust. At this time, it is difficult to assess how the audience perceived them and whether they understood what their leadership was in the context of Industry 5.0. Information about this program was presented in several presentations and before that at the July 3 webinar.
The preliminary conclusion is this: we still lack more extensive and more detailed information about these 2 projects that are being developed within the framework of the Digital Europe program. At the same time, this attempt to “package” the main advantages and features of the program within the framework of the conference can be considered successful in the circle of UCA experts, and primarily from DIH KAU, 482.Solutions, the Ukrainian weight company.
Summing up, within the framework of the preparation of the conference, the experts of the UCA committees have done quite a lot of work on systematization of the existing achievements and developments. Among them, the main thing should be considered a certain synchronization and coordination regarding development programs of key institutions and tools for supporting innovative ecosystems, fig.
Oleksandr Yurchak in the final presentation emphasized the importance of targeted support both in the development of network institutions (DIHs, clusters and experts) and relevant tools. Where development funds, industry accelerators and legislative changes to drive digital and green innovation in manufacturing sectors lie ahead. Accordingly, targeted programs to support the specified institutions, as well as in areas of retraining — training of personnel, internationalization of SMEs and roadmaps of the dual transition are the main ones in the strategy of Industry 5.0.
What next?
In general, the conference was successful and showed the readiness of advanced developers, scientists and clusters to transition to Industry 5.0. Of course, it is very difficult to talk about such a transition of the majority of industry in wartime conditions. Instead, and as noted by the representative of the European Commission, Sean O’Reigean, we are not talking about a “sequential transition” – first 3.0, then 4.0, then 5.0.
Paradigms 5.0 relate to changes not so much technological as mental, behavioral, changes at the level of strategizing, defining other priorities and practicing other approaches and not only to issues of production, but also to society, the environment and people. All this can be started now for organizations of any level of technological maturity.
Among the priority actions, the UCA plans the following in the coming months:
- Production of a position document on Industry 5.0 with extensive communications to the government and foreign partners.
- Expanding the circle of signatories of Manifesto 5.0, including state structures.
- Launching lobbying campaigns for targeted programs for creation of relevant institutions and tools for development of Industries 4.0-5.0 at the state level in Ukraine.
UCA invites experts from leading institutes, business structures and clusters to join the specified works. Contact info@clusters.org.ua about joining.
The original article can be found on the UCA website.
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