**2.3 Further perspectives on the 4IR**

In parallel to the above developments, two sub-concepts have slipped into some media debates and discussions – Industry or Society 4.0 or 5.0. The former emerged from discussions between leading industrial and academic figures in Germany [22] and is a subset of the 4IR since Industrie 4.0 is predicated on the role of the IoT in facilitating the establishment of smart factories *guided by* sensors and other devices. This core assumption being that the above set of connections will alter the classic distinction between the production and consumption of material products, because it introduces the possibility of supply chains being managed by producers, suppliers and consumers to monitor and optimise assets and activities to a very granular level, in accordance with agreed societal values.

In contrast, the concept of Society/Industry 5.0 originated in Japan in 2016 in the Japanese Government's policy document the *Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan* [23]. The defining difference between the two slightly different, but nonetheless related, societal and industrial conceptions, is that Society/Industry 5.0 is based much more comprehensively on the principle of *personalisation* than the 4IR. It affirms new forms of cooperation between man and machine and industry and higher education as human intelligence works with machine intelligence, to produce

products, services and systems that are genuine co-constructions between the state, market and civil society, and education and industry and communities [23]. This development elevates "knowledge exchange" between the private, public and third sector into a principle of co-construction rather a beneficial by-product of that way of working [24]. We return to this issue in the conclusion.
