The Industry 5.0 Summer Sessions successfully took place on 24 – 25 June 2026 at Flanders Make in Kortrijk, Belgium. Designed by the PROSPECTS 5.0 project and co-organised with SEISMEC, BRIDGES 5.0, and SkillAIbility, the two-day high-engagement event brought together industrial leaders, technology providers, researchers, and business support organisations from across Europe.
Structured as an interactive Industry 5.0 Transformation Retreat, the Summer Sessions moved beyond the traditional conference format by combining hands-on learning, live technology demonstrations, and collaborative workshops. Participants exchanged experiences from real industrial settings, discussed barriers to transformation, and explored practical solutions supporting industrial transformation.
The programme featured learning labs on technology acceptance, human-centric integration, and workforce adaptability, alongside demonstration tracks showcasing advanced solutions in operator support, flexible automation, digitalisation, internal logistics, quality monitoring, and production planning.
A particular highlight of the second day was the collaborative challenge session, during which participants developed Mini Industry 5.0 Roadmaps tailored to their organisations. Working in groups, participants identified short-, medium-, and long-term priorities, together with the resources, potential risks, and KPIs needed to support implementation.
Drawing on the expertise of four Horizon Europe projects, the Industry 5.0 Summer Sessions strengthened cross-project collaboration and provided participants with practical knowledge, new perspectives, and actionable ideas for advancing human-centric, sustainable, and resilient industrial transformation.
Presentations slides:
EU Efficient by Simon Vandemaele, Senior researcher, KU Leuven: here
Expert spark by Jan Laurijssen, SDWorkx: here
Expert Spark by Sara Canella, NSBproject: here
Keynote by Peter Totterdill, Director, Workplace Innovation Europe CLG: here
Made CC SkillAI by Sona Arevshatyan, EU Education Project Manager: here