The new industrial revolution paradigm designated as “industry 4.0” as per 4th industrial revolution, is a concept that first emerged as part of an academic initiative by the German government in 2011 with the aim of strengthening the country's competitiveness by bringing industrial production closer to information and communication technologies (Baena et al., 2017) and will bring changes in the economy, employment and in the world of professional training (OCDE, 2018). The “industry 4.0” initiative consists in the fusion of new production methods with the latest developments in information and communication technology, driven by the trend of digitalization of the economy and society (Santos, 2017). This initiative includes digital solutions to respond to the needs of increasing customization of products and services, based on access and treatment of data, contributing to the creation of new value chains, new business models and new technologies (Baena et al., 2017; Cabrera, 2014). These late transformations will certainly have an important role in the future of work (OECD, 2018).

Within the scope of Educational Sciences, this proposal aims to discuss the impact of the 4th industrial revolution in education and training systems. Therefore, the research question underlying this paper is to understand how industry 4.0 is being undertaken in the research field in Portugal so far and how it is perceived by the education and training field?

The paper aims to contribute to expand the understanding of “industry 4.0” concept, analysing it through the lens of education as we consider that the profound effects of i4.0 will have a relevant impact on the education and learning fields. This impact will be seen in new ways of working and new businesses in a profound digitized and internet driven era as we lately understood with the experience of Covid-19 pandemic (World Economic Forum, 2020). The digitalisation will not only affect competitiveness and their strategies to thrive, but also the human resources as a relevant field of investment regarding digital literacy and digital competences development, making a change not only the industry but the whole social development and the way we live, work and relate to each other (Santos, 2017).

This paper will present how the concept of “industry 4.0” has been appropriated by different fields of knowledge and will contribute to discuss the influence of i4. in education and training and the expectations regarding future competences and training needs not only for the trainees, but also for the trainers.

This paper is part of a PhD project initiated in 2018. The research is based on a non-sequential mixed methods aiming to , the academic research around this topic and, more specifically, in the Education and Training area, namely through documentary analysis, questionnaires to the industry sector and trainers and interviews with heads of human resources, related with this digital transformation, since it will require a better understanding of the needs and skills demand by the labour market, which can help to improve employability, social mobility and inclusion (European Training Foundation et al., 2016). We carried out a documentary analysis of all the academic papers and thesis published until 2020 on the topic of “industry 4.0” at a Portuguese level, contributing to the well-founded support of our theoretical framework that sustains the problematic (Hart, 1998; Bardin, 2011). This analysis was done in three different phases. In the first phase was the collection of all the publications that includes the “industry 4.0” keyword in Portuguese and after in English in all text fields in RENATES and RCAAP, the two Portuguese databases for Master and PhD research already finished and still ongoing, finding 474 documents. The second step and from those 474 documents, first we select the 424 that were accessible and them the 393 that were available for download. In the second phase we analyse the 393 documents and collect the relevant and demographic data, namely year of publication, language, country, title, author, having an overview of all the relevant production on this topic in Portugal. For the third phase we analysed all the 393 documents on a more detailed base, using Nvivo software and identifying the similarities and differences on the definition of industry 4.0, investigation context, approaches, dimensions, and concerns.

Findings suggest that “industry 4.0” is a trend topic starting only in 2016 and increasing until 2020. The main results are in Master thesis (78%) and in Engineering sector (46%) of the total production in this topic. Even though this 4th industrial revolution will have a major impact in the in work and education (Santos, 2017) and these changes are mainly driven by business and societal needs (Colombo et all., 2015) there is no evidence of research in the Education and Training area. However, some of the literature already points about that “4th Industrial Revolution is marking a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life is being influenced in some way by the penetration of the cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things” (Colombo et all., 2015) and it will imply a tremendous paradigm-shift in society due to this technological change (European Union, 2013). This has become even more urgent due to the pandemic crisis, at a point where if this opportunity will be missed, we will face growing inequality, discord and lost potential for generations (World Economic Forum, 2020). This analysis provided us information regarding the state of art of “industry 4.0” research that shows a totally absence of this topic in the educational area in Portugal. This absence underlies the importance of this investigation and the concerns on the effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in quality of life of citizens and businesses in an increasingly interconnected and digital world, especially with the acceleration due to COVID19 pandemic (WEF, 2020). Technologies can help address these societal challenges (European Union, 2013), namely the development of human skills and capabilities through education, learning and meaningful work, since them are the key drivers of economic success, individual well-being and societal cohesion (World Economic Forum, 2020).

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