António Moniz

New technologies, sustainability policies, protectionism and consumers preferences are pushing for the reorganization of the automotive cluster. (ILO, 2020) Due to recent technological advances derived from the application of AI in the domains of autonomous driving, connectivity, automation, and robotics, the automotive sector is evolving from the traditional, linear, product-oriented value chain to a mobility, service oriented one including new players (ILO, 2020). In fact, in the last years, several digital competences centers are supplying the automotive sector and have been installed in Portugal. These changes are put in place to enhance the product quality, to control costs and to improve productivity. The product shift is done to respond to new regulations on environmental protection, and to enable the control of some emergent market niches.
The paper will contribute to answer the question: what are the expectable changes in productivity due to the introduction of AI in the automotive sector and at new players in the automotive value chain in Portugal? Do they have impacts in traditional labour relations in the sector? Did the COVID-19 had an effect in the acceleration of such changes? Does the employment in the automotive sector changed with the recent automation trends in Portugal? Are there signs of improvement in qualifications with increases in automation? Or can we observe a clear job precarity in the automotive labour market with increased application of cyber physical systems in this sector? We want to develop this framework of questions to collect new data and obtain results that will be based on case studies from the automotive cluster. We will use, as well, secondary statistical analysis. Finally, changes in the productivity and labour market will be discussed in relation to the employment volume and skills in the automotive sector.
In this recently approved national project, we will focus on AI (cyber-physical systems, intelligent automation, robotics, IoT) as the most relevant emergent technology to understand the development of automation in this manufacturing sector (Geels et al., 2012; Moniz 2018). R&D investments in industrial processes in general may reflect productivity improvements derived from the increased automation process, but that may not be the general trend. Our empirical data are based until now on initial case studies from the automotive and components sector combined with database search by keywords that sign intelligence automation developments and AI applications selected from national R&D projects on robotics, machine learning, collaborative tools, human-machine interaction and autonomous systems, supported by European structural funds. The implications on industrial productivity and employment will be discussed in relation to automation trends in the automotive sector.

In this paper we will address the impacts on work and employment in Portugal of undergoing reconfigurations in automotive Global Value Chains (GVC). Due to its contributions to employment, exports and production the automotive sector is regarded as strategic for Portugal. Currently, it is caught in the midst of a turmoil, spurred by major trends that are reshaping its global outlook, with perils and opportunities for firms and workers depending on their position in different segments of GVC. The emergence of GVC transformed the patterns of international division of labour, trade and investment. Countries and regions specialize not only in products and services but increasingly in tasks and functions. Value is created globally and is apportioned along the chain depending on the tasks performed, the resources and type of workforce engaged in production in each node, its geographical location and the relative power relations within the production network. Typically, along GVC’s production stages, labour intensive, low skill tasks are ascribed – offshored and subcontracted by lead firms – to firms and workers in peripheral countries, while knowledge intensive, more complex or higher skilled tasks are retained in core regions. The value captured, as well as the share of value ascribed to labour and the quality of employment, are broadly correlated with its position in the chain. GVC, besides firms or even sectors, thus become an appropriate locus for analysing labour processes and employment patterns.
Major trends reconfiguring automotive global networks of production, include: (i) automation; (ii) digitalisation; (iii) electrification of vehicles; (iv) shifting geographies of production; and (v) industrial, employment and social policies. Manufacture of vehicles is known to be an automation-intensive sector permeated by technological developments such as new cyber-physical systems and flexible lightweight robots with an impact on work and employment, particularly on low-skilled workers. National and regional industrial, trade and investment policies articulated with company strategies, are also participating in the reshaping of the automotive GVC and changing the geographies of production. Finally, employment and social policies impinge on and are conditioned by foreign investment and location decisions of automotive multinationals, thus participating in the reshaping of GVC. In order to respond to the main overarching research question (what are the actual and prospective impacts on work and employment in Portugal driven by transitions taking place in the automotive GVC?) an analytical model will be designed. It will place the ongoing and prospective transformations of work and employment patterns as consequence of the interplay of actor’s strategies and public policies, against the background of structures and institutions. The research study will be based on major OEM operating in Portugal (VW, Stellantis, Mitsubishi and Toyota) and on automotive supply chain companies, most of them major player on the automotive GVC (Faurecia, KWD, Vintech, Sodecia, Preh).

This report is the 3rd and final report elaborated for the project CrowdWork by the Portuguese team. The text provides the context in which digital platforms operate, as well as the main governmental initiatives in some of the sectors. Five case studies provide a description of each sector and an analysis of the existing / emerging collective
organisations, their promotors, rationale and extension. In the last chapter, the text presents our main conclusions and recommendations for policy making.

The EU unveiled a stimulus package as part of the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2021–2027 and the temporary instrument designed to boost the economic recovery. This countercyclical response is aimed at avoiding a decline in the EU economy and protecting employment, vulnerable companies and necessity-driven entrepreneurs; however, it should also lay the foundations for a desirable entrepreneurial paradigm for the future that is driven by opportunity and embedded in a Circular Economy aligned to global well-being. We propose a new model that implies a different EU policy which puts entrepreneurship on the path toward and not away from development.

Portugal has been referred as one example of lower levels of integration of social partners in the governance of education and training systems (Sanz de Miguel, 2017). There is lack of research about the effectiveness of the governance of the only program close to the Dual VET concept: the Apprenticeship system. A pilot project of Dual VET ran from 2012 and terminated in 2016 without substantial evaluation. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the role social partners have in the governance of the existing Portuguese Apprenticeship system. We carried out extensive review of the scientific and grey literature about Dual VET for youngsters in Portugal, as well as database queries to official statistical sources. Our research reveals a complex formal role: The employment agency IEFP provides funding for Apprenticeship and negotiates with the main social partners the allocation of the Single Social Tax for its regional centres. Indirectly, many social partners are formally involved in the general VET governance participating in various coordination and monitoring structures of the National System of Qualifications and other regulatory agencies (IEFP and ANQEP). In this article we also discuss possible causes for the failure of the pilot Dual VET, which took effect within the scope of a curricular review of the primary and secondary education.

Será que esta pandemia está a dar velocidade à transição digital, nomeadamente com o teletrabalho? Ou será que, apesar do confinamento durante cerca de 3 meses, o recurso ao teletrabalho foi feito sem grande regulamentação, cuidado ou negociação?

Due to the ongoing technical advancements in robotics, new organizational and occupational impacts are expected in different sectors. The contribution of António Moniz and Bettina-Johanna Krings focuses on the social conditions under which technology is embedded into production processes. Thus, social distribution processes, demographic change, sustainability becomes more and more important when reflecting about "technology futures".
In particular they will ask:
How does automation change work & working conditions?
Which expectations on technology are strengthen-ing the concepts of work?
Which regulations and ethics principles must be considered (safety, autonomy, control)?
Which new competences and qualification dimen-sions will be raised for non-routine tasks in auto-mated environments?
Which new types of human-machine interaction can be developed with increased cyber-physical system application at the shopfloor?

This preliminary report presents the outcomes of desk research, which was oriented to obtain a clear picture of the ‘state of the art’ in the involved countries and sectors. The report first reviews the main concepts and categories used to approach the topic and provides a definition of virtual work. Second, it describes the incidence and features of virtual work based on both European and national surveys. Third, it reviews previous research outcomes on the effects of virtual work on working conditions at national and sectoral level. Fourth, it analyses national approach to regulate virtual work. Fifth, the report addresses main institutional features of industrial relations in the three sectors and five countries; and the role played by social dialogue and collective bargaining at sectoral and company level to regulate working conditions of virtual workers.

This 1st Report of the project CrowdWork21 presents a summary of the information collected about workers in digital platforms by country (German, Hungary, Portugal and Spain). Each national report describes first the scientific debates about workers of digital platforms. After, the reports present the information collected about the national public debates and identifies the angles normally covered by the media in relation to the organisation of digital workers. Lastly, the reports present initial conclusions about the information collected in each country.

Energy storage systems (ESS) are seen as one of the main pillars for a renewable-based energy system. Selecting the most suitable and sustainable ESS for a given project is a problem that involves multiple stakeholders with quite often diverging objectives that cannot all be fulfilled by a single technology. Several studies are available that tackle this problem applying multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). However, these use very different Multi-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) approaches, criteria and goals for decision support, why their results are difficult to compare or to reproduce. This work presents a review of existing MCDA-literature using MADM as a tool for sustainability evaluation of grid-tied ESS. Available studies are summarized, the goals, used MADM methods, and quantification of criteria are analyzed and discussed to provide tentative recommendations. The reviewed studies cover multiple technologies ranging from electrochemical, mechanical or electric ESS. Considered criteria are mainly structured around technology, economy, society, and environment, comprising a high number of individual sub-criteria. The aggregation of these criteria is mainly realized through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in combination with a wide set of other methods. The quantification of various criteria is often based on different literature sources wherein context-free data for cost, and environmental impacts are used, leading in some cases to inconsistent comparisons in the assessments. Only in a few cases, assessments are linked to specific application requirements, which are decisive factors for the design of an ESS. A minority of the reviewed works include a representative set of decision-makers in their approaches, wherein the number or type of participants is often not communicated transparently. Therefore, most of the studies are considered to have a limited orientation towards practical decision making, but they provide valuable information regarding MADM method development.

Germany has ambitious targets to produce 35 % of the needed electricity from Renewables (RES) mainly based on wind and solar power by 2020 and over 80 % by 2050 within the so called “Energiewende”. Energy storage is seen as a potential option to assure the safe RES system integration to achieve this goals. There is a high uncertainty and the resulting public discourse about the future demand of different storage technologies is driving further development of these technologies. A literature review of 9 studies and 10 expert interviews is carried out in line of a foresight exercise to tackle these uncertainties. The estimations of reviewed literature are based on models with a market perspective on energy storage demand. Most scenarios used in this models are built on top down logics, where processes at lower levels (technology, micro-economic sphere) are determined by dominant macro dynamics. Different storage technologies are only considered partially or in an aggregated way. The reviewed studies show that there is a high for potential storage on every time scale starting from the year 2030 to 2040. Analysed potentials vary depending on RES diffusion scenarios and excess rate assumptions which are estimated to be between 0 to 44 GW in 2050. Reviewed studies strongly integrate shared visions about system developments and formal analyses and provide important and valuable information about potential future implications regarding energy storage. But they only partially account, due to practical reasons, wider benefits, stakeholder opinions and continuous market and system changes. It is also not possible to account for discontinuities in the technological innovation process of energy storage within this quantitative approaches. Stakeholder interviews provide thus additional and helpful insights to the literature review. The stakeholders frame alternative potential future developments that could influence the market success and need for energy storage until 2050. Most important factors named where policy measures, new market models and decentralization of the energy system. As in literature there is a big uncertainty among experts about the importance of different storage technologies and if energy storage is in general the best option among other flexibility measures as grid reinforcement, flexible demand and flexible power plants. It remains thus impossible to provide suggestions regarding the development of single storage technologies.

The last decades have shown an increasing amount of research into expectations of science and technology. Especially for emerging technologies, expectations held by different stakeholder are guiding the direction of research and development. In this article the results of an investigation into the expectations of specific actors regarding the development of emerging battery technology for applications in the power grid are presented. It is set up as an explorative study within the framework of Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA). A number of studies since the 1990s have indicated a growing need for energy storage options in the power grid, where batteries appear to be capable of providing a range of valuable services to the grid. Cost-effectiveness on a large scale will however require considerable technical improvements. The configuration of energy storage may differ in the specific location and exploitation of the storage assets, as well as in the investments in new storage capacity. In this study the visions and expectations of several relevant actors are analysed using interviews and surveys in terms of expectations of technological development, expectations concerning stakeholder roles, and channels of interaction between the relevant actors. The results indicate a divide in expectations between the user side of the technology (the electric power industry) and the development side (academic researchers). Opinions differ with respect to the obstacles to technological development, the actors relevant in early technological development, and the most suitable channels for interaction between these actors. It follows from the theoretical background that conflicts in expectations provide the opportunity for the acceleration of technological development and adoption through stakeholder participation. Small interactive workshops, where conflicts identified in this paper are discussed, were identified as a suitable channel in order to reach consensus in visions and expectations for battery technology.

Despite increasing calls for evidence-based policies, knowledge about the practical use of evidences remains limited. This paper studies the process of construction of evidences in decisions of innovation policy to understand how evidences were used. It analysis the use of indicators and other evidences through interviews conducted to inquire about the two decisions: an electric mobility policy and a nanotechnology laboratory. Results show indicators and other evidences were brought to decision processes according to their availability and capacity to support the different interests of the actors and
the stakeholders. Their role was influenced by the particular situation of the decision makers. More importantly, the use of persuasive analytical evidences appears to be related with the adversity of the policy context. In addition, research suggests that indicators are one tool among others to foster innovation decisions. In fact, the relatively minor instrumental role of indicators suggests that indicators are mostly a complementary instrument of decision. When used relevantly, indicators can offer support to a decision. But there are other significant influences that need to be taken into account to understand the specific role indicators and other evidences play, such as the social relations of the decision makers and their emotional-intuitive decisions.

If the question is whether there is a parliamentary technology assessment (PTA) unit in Portugal or Spain, the clear answer is that there is still no such unit at the central state level at the present time, neither in Portugal nor in Spain. The question then has to be modified addressing previous and current efforts to establish PTA and the current framework conditions and opportunities. Practices of PTA are framed here as a democratic innovation in the context of changes in representative democracies. Against this backdrop, the efforts and opportunities to establish PTA in Spain and Portugal are studied. By sketching these developments and outlining the opportunities in these countries, our aim is to contribute to the debate about the likelihood of a new wave of PTA in Europe (Hennen/Nierling 2014).