Introduction & Key Definitions. Our thus far research within Deliverables 1 & 2 indicated that Greece demonstrates a technically adept human capital, with an overall high number of tertiary graduates and an adequate number of ICT and STEM graduates. However, these individuals are not significantly upskilled and reskilled when entering the Greek industry and progress their careers. In fact, evidence indicates that the Greek enterprises have performed limited investments in the digital upskilling and reskilling of their industrial workforce thus far. This was also verified by the Greek executives that we interviewed as part of our Industry 4.0 survey. The provision of the appropriate Industry 4.0 knowledge and skills to the current and future Greek industrial workforce is nevertheless a fundamental prerequisite for the new Digital era and one of the most important building blocks in Greece’s Industry 4.0 strategy. This is the reason why the digital upskilling and reskilling of the Greek workforce consists the first pillar of the Industry 4.0 strategy. This pillar will seek to, first and foremost, digitally upskill and reskill all the current workforce of the Greek industry, mainly focusing on professionals with technical skills. By developing special training programmes based on the technologies to be adopted and already utilised by the Greek industry, employees will have the chance to learn new skills and better position themselves in their field of work, enabling them to perform better in the new setting of their current or future job. At the same time, the pillar shall include dedicated initiatives for attracting and developing the future talent pipeline for the Greek Industry. This could be achieved by better equipping ICT and STEM students with the necessary skillsets to work in the Industry 4.0 environment, by enhancing the collaboration between the Greek academia and the Greek Industry, by enriching the education syllabus of the VET bodies to better match with industry needs and by increasing the attractiveness of the Greek Industry as a career destination for top talent. These initiatives shall provide to the future workforce a set of basic digital skills that they could further build upon throughout their career life. Finally, this pillar shall include targeted initiatives for the repatriation of Greek human capital and the attraction of international human capital. This could be achieved through the design of targeted fellowship programmes for international PhD students/ research...
Introduction & Key Definitions. Major outcome both from our As-Is Analysis on Industry 4.0 and the design of Greece’s Industry 4.0 strategy has been the great significance that the Greek innovation ecosystem shall play for Greece’s Industry 4.0 transformation. Currently, the country ranks low in terms of innovation and R&D, both with regards to their R&D intensity and with regards to the overall number of the issued Greek patents. What is more worrying nevertheless, is the disassociation that appears to exist between the R&D and the applied research & industry implementation. Contrary to the EU average, where the business sector appears highly involved in R&D, the Greek R&D is mainly dominated by the higher education sector, while Greek organisations appear reluctant to invest in applied R&D.9 For these reasons, this pillar aims to cover a set of initiatives with a threefold focus. Firstly, the pillar shall focus on the enhancement and promotion of innovation and respective innovation structures across the Greek Industry and the closer and more targeted collaboration of the Greek Government, Industry and Research & Academia (triple helix innovation model). To achieve this, we shall propose a set of targeted initiatives for directly supporting innovation in specific Industry 4.0 value chains and technology groups,
Introduction & Key Definitions. The third Pillar will seek to develop a collaborative industrial ecosystem where Industry stakeholders shall cooperate and utilise each other’s expertise in order to achieve greater goals. This is expected to accelerate the digitisation of the Greek SMEs and mid-caps, as well as to increase their thus far limited awareness on digital and Industry 4.0. Ultimately assist the Greek industry to advance “as one” to the Industry 4.0 era and cumulatively reap the benefits that it has to offer, instead of having a few i4.0 - advanced groups of firms and many i4.0-laggards operating in two different speeds. Collaborations should be pursued across many different levels ranging from the provision of technical know-how and expertise from large, digitally-advanced enterprises to Greek SMEs and mid-caps to the setup of industrial platforms on specific areas of economic activity that will enable the creation of ecosystems of market actors in a multi-sided marketplace. These ecosystems will enable the creation of new innovative products and services and accelerate the development of worldwide standards. Moreover, tailored measures shall also be included in the remits of this pillar in order to promote the internationalization of the Greek enterprises and their participation in EU value chains and global emerging ecosystems. Adding to the above and as it happens for all other Industry 4.0 strategies across Europe, Greece has to establish its own Industry 4.0 platform. This platform will not only act as communication tool for the dissemination of the strategy to the various stakeholders, but also as a forum that will invite all involved actors in order to participate and take action throughout the various initiatives pursued. It is important to mention here that a first positive step has been made towards this direction, through the sign off of the relevant memorandum of cooperation between the General Secretariat for Industry and the Ministry of Digital Governance. Finally, as also mentioned under Pillar 2, there is a set of initiatives residing in that pillar, that also contribute to Pillar 3. These are the following: • Initiative 2.3: “Introduce the “GovTech Programme for Manufacturing SMEs/start-ups” • Initiative 2.5: “Adopt an Industry 4.0 start-up” programme • Initiative 2.6: “Introduce an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to enhance innovation & collaboration across the Greek Industry” All these initiatives achieve a double benefit. On the one hand, they enhance the...
