Summary

Manufacturing is back again. While it never went away in reality, at the policy, business, and academic levels, it disappeared from the public debate. However, in these past few years, it became clear the key role that manufacturing plays in our society. From the ability to scale up ventilators to the increased importance of producing clean energies and related technologies, it is self-evident that manufacturing has a special role in our societies, being it a key sector to solve the grand challenges that humanity is facing.  

It is important to understand how manufacturing is framed in other countries. For example, countries like the UK and Ireland have had different perceptions of manufacturing. In the UK - being an early industrialiser – it is more likely that manufacturing is characterised in the collective imagination by strenuous jobs and dirty factories; differently, in late industrialisers like Ireland (or Singapore) clean pharma and IT brought a different picture of manufacturing.  

Academic and policy literature are reviewed to examine how the digitalisation and sustainability trends, and their interactions, are shaping and transforming how manufacturing is framed (Muench et al., 2022). These two ‘mega’ trends are contributing to change the attitude towards manufacturing, because of their growing dynamisms, the high-skills jobs that are demanded as well as their social recognition and mission-oriented character. Digitalisation of manufacturing, and the ‘apparent servification’ of the economy, are contributing to a new, shiny, and high-tech perception of manufacturing. The sustainability goal is providing a ‘renovated’ role for manufacturing, from a dirty and dangerous place to a high-tech sector that can help in saving the planet. This project is also gathering primary data by conducting experts (from both academia and policy) roundtables.