António Moniz

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.

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.

O trabalho em plataformas digitais é uma nova forma de trabalho que, em Portugal, não tem ainda definido um modelo regulado de relações de trabalho. Este artigo analisa os perfis de trabalhadores de várias plataformas digitais de trabalho e a sua representação coletiva em Portugal. A diversidade encontrada nos estudos de caso dos perfis dos trabalhadores de cada plataforma explica, em parte, a falta de interesse de movimentos laborais em os representar. O tipo de tarefas e o local de trabalho contribuem para o desinteresse na procura de representantes coletivos, e demonstra os (des)alinhamentos que ocorreram entre trabalhadores e possíveis representantes. Observa-se ainda potencial para outros alinhamentos entre os interesses de diferentes trabalhadores, movimentos sindicais e associações de representação alternativa.

To focus on processes of scientific and technological design and on how newly designed objects are used in different ways than initially intended (“displaced”), the organizers (the Society for Social Studies on Science-4S and the European Association of Studies on Science and Technology-EASST) chose the conference theme “Design and Displacement”. The concept of design here referred to innovative processes in forming new ideas and material objects. This general idea was reflected in a multitude of sub-topics.

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.

Este capítulo pretende contribuir para a análise das principais fontes de ansiedade social causada pela crescente automação em Portugal. O capítulo foi baseado na revisão de literatura internacional e nacional, bem como na análise secundária de dados. Para além disso, durante o projeto DEEP VIEW foram realizadas duas entrevistas não estruturadas a especialistas em relações laborais e 13 entrevistas semiestruturadas a representantes do mundo sindical e de entidades patronais (federações e confederações), em setores particularmente relevantes para as questões associadas ao risco tecnológico.

Em Portugal, existe uma ausência de formalização da ciência para assuntos políticos em que a procura de aconselhamento é, em grande medida, informal.

The so called “crowd work” is an employment form that uses a digital platform to enable organisations or individuals to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services in exchange for payment (Valenduc and Vendramin, 2016). There are many alternative terms for crowd work used in European member states, such as crowd sourcing, crowd employment, sharing economy, platform economy, gig economy, on-demand economy, collaborative economy, Peer-to-peer economy, among others (Eurofound 2018). Recently, the term “digital platform work” has developed recently to be dominant in the literature to refer to sectors where this technology has arrived. Accordingly, this report will proceed using the latter term. These forms of online intermediation have expanded from creative and high-skilled professional activities that became virtualised as a result of digitalisation to a variety of other services and activities, traditionally delivered by self-employed, that involve the maintenance or repair of material commodities or the delivery of services in person, such as cleaning, gardening, household maintenance and transport (Huws, 2017). As a result of this, workers profiles vary from highly skilled IT and creative professionals to very unskilled workers. It has been also noted that many digital platform workers are young people looking for extra income such as students, unemployed or carers (Valenduc and Vendramin, 2016). The main Portuguese reference about work in digital platforms is fused with the Uber app. Its controversial arrival in 2014 triggered fierce responses from several groups. The main legislative reference on digital platform work is the ‘Uber law’. The symbolism of the app expressed as ‘Uberization’ became synonymous of the ‘new’ precariat, seen as a hassle of technology and an attack to organized labour in the country. There are also regulations for Airbnb at state, regional and municipal level intended to limit the number of lodgings in certain areas where touristic activities are very intense. In general, the other platforms are not covered by specific regulations.

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.

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.

The objective of the paper is to help to understand recent changes in the structure of R&D activities, by analyzing data on the expenditure of the business sector in research and development (R&D). The results are framed in an international context, through comparison with indicators from the most developed countries, divided by technological intensity and economic activity. The study reveals that the indicators of Portuguese R&D expenditure in the business sector are closely linked both to fiscal policy and to high foreign direct investment in knowledge-intensive industries. It also links these indicators to phenomena such as the abundance of skilled labor in pharmaceutical industries and the government intervention in some sectors of the economy (namely health and rail transportation).

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.

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).