IER staff and PhD students participated virtually in Beyond 4.0’s second summer school, held again in San Sebastian in Spain. Beyond 4.0 is a Horizon 2020 funded project that examines the future of work and welfare in the digital age.

The summer school offered a mixture of themes: careers guidance for PhD students, plus research on the digital transformation of workplaces; regional responses to digitalisation; historical analysis of industrial transformations; and social policy contexts.

Among the 22 speakers, Professor Chris Warhurst and Dr Sally-Anne Barnes presented sessions during the Summer School. Two of IER’s PhD students Wafaa Elmezraoui and Gianni Anelli Lopez were among the 21 PhD students who participated in the event. Congratulations to Wafaa. Having ‘pitched’ her PhD topic in a poster session during the event she was awarded first prize.

Watch a short explanation of the summer school in this video.

Beyond 4.0 will hold a scientific conference in Sofia over 30 September-1 October 2021. It focuses on digital transformations on work and employment. It is likely to be a hybrid conference. The deadline for submitting proposals is 15 March 2021. Proposals should be no more than 450 words and sent to: sofia2021@beyond4-0.eu. Read more here.

IER’s Chris Warhurst and Wil Hunt have a new report on digitalisation and the future of work.

Going beyond the usual ‘death of jobs’ debate, the paper examines the work and employment implications of Industrie 4.0 and Uberisation plus the political positions being adopted on these two major developments and the likely policy responses within the European Union.

It is published by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

A new report written by Erika Kispeter about the current and future demand for digital skills at the work has just been published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The report argues that digital skills should not be looked at in isolation from other skills, pointing to a need for ‘21st century skills’, especially interpersonal skills, cognitive competencies and learning strategies with creative use of digital skills becoming increasingly important.

On 5 October, Sally-Anne Barnes and Professor Ross Parry, from the University of Leicester, were invited by the French Ministry of Culture to participate in a professional day dedicated to digital strategy in museums. Sally-Anne and Ross presented the early findings of the One by One project: building the digital literacies of UK museums. The event held at the Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris, provided an opportunity for those in the museum sector to reflect on how to set up digital strategies and support digital transformation. #MuseeNumerique