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Industry 5.0 Symposium in Barcelona: positioning Catalonia’s innovation ecosystem in Europe’s industrial transformation 

Industry 5.0 Symposium in Barcelona: positioning Catalonia’s innovation ecosystem in Europe’s industrial transformation 

On 1 October 2026, PROSPECTS 5.0 and Eurecat brought together public administration, industry, clusters and research for the Industry 5.0 Symposium: Positioning Catalonia’s Innovation Ecosystem in Europe’s Industrial Transformation. Hosted at Eurecat in Barcelona, the symposium explored a shared question: how can Industry 5.0 principles help European industry stay competitive? 

From European insights to Catalan practice 

Joan Guasch, Director of Public Policy and Institutional Relations at Eurecat, opened the symposium and welcomed participants to the centre. 

Ziga Valic (Flanders Make), PROSPECTS 5.0 Coordinator, and Simona Aceto (NSB Project) then presented insights from the project. They showed how companies can use the PROSPECTS 5.0 approach to assess their Industry 5.0 maturity and track progress through concrete indicators, with examples of measurable results such as savings in waste management. 

The focus then moved to the regional level. Sandra Pérez, Head of Industry 4.0 at ACCIÓ, the Agency for Business Growth of the Government of Catalonia, presented how Catalonia supports companies in the transition towards Industry 5.0. Efrem del Valle, Strategic Director at Salaet, followed with a company case showing what Industry 5.0 looks like on the shop floor. 

Roundtable: blockers and enablers 

The roundtable “Industry 5.0 as a driver for European competitiveness: blockers and enablers”, moderated by Elisenda Lamana (Eurecat), brought together Joan Guasch and Joan Lluís Mas-Albaigès (Eurecat), Ziga Valic (Flanders Make), Sandra Pérez (ACCIÓ), Efrem del Valle (Salaet) and Joan Puaté (Digital Cluster of Catalonia). An open discussion with the audience followed. 

Key takeaways from the discussion: 

  • Integration creates value. Sustainability, resilience and human-centricity deliver the strongest results when combined in one company strategy. Treated separately, sustainability can look like a cost. Together, the three pillars reinforce each other and improve overall performance. 
  • What gets measured moves forward. To keep momentum, Industry 5.0 needs clear indicators and evidence of results, both inside companies and at policy level. 
  • Long-term, stable policy frameworks help companies plan. Panellists agreed that stable, predictable policy and funding frameworks are among the most important enablers, since industrial investments are planned over many years. Stable does not mean rigid, though; policy frameworks must give certainty but remain sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing times. 
  • SMEs need support to turn technology into business value. Many companies still digitalise step by step rather than strategically. Skills development, integrating new tools into core processes, and the role of technology centres and clusters as intermediaries were all highlighted. 
  • Human-centricity is a European strength. Speakers shared examples of automation introduced to improve employee well-being while sustaining performance. Europe’s high standards in quality, safety and data protection were seen as an asset to promote in global markets. 
  • AI works best with people in the loop. AI, including agentic AI, delivers results when it is built into business processes with a clear strategy and human oversight. 

Panellists agreed that the Industry 5.0 transition is still at an early stage and will need sustained, long-term effort from companies, support organisations and policymakers alike.