SDGs in the Age of New Industrial Revolutions—Impacts, Trends, and Issues beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear Colleagues, 

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the major obstacles on the route to sustainable growth is the restructuring of industrial output. As a result, expectations for New Industrial Revolutions' (Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0) contribution are high. However, little research has been conducted on the relationship between the United Nations 2030 Agenda's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the one hand, and the digitalization of industrial processes and research and innovation put at the service of the transition to a sustainable, human-centric and resilient industry on the other hand. As a result, it can be claimed that, in order to support sustainable development, sustainability must be an intrinsic part of both Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 deployment. As a result, the digital manufacturing and research and innovation ideas must take crucial sustainability aspects into account.

This Special Issue is looking for researchers, practitioners, academic members, policymakers, and decisionmakers who are interested in the trends, issues, and impact of SDG development in the context of the evolution and circumstances of 2020.

As a result, this Special Issue will cover a variety of interest areas that address, explain, and detail actions toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, as well as provide an opportunity to explore a variety of issues that have recently arisen, bringing together various themes such as health, education, climate and climate change, globalisation, economy, finance, management, innovation, from the perspective of the SDGs, Industry 4.0, which is enabled by Internet technologies to create smart products, a smart production, and smart services, and Industry 5.0, which brings benefits for industry, for workers and for society, making industries more resilient against external shocks, such as the COVID-19 crisis.

In view of the above, the proposed Special Issue aims to include (but is not limited to) the following topics and questions of interest on the impact of SDGs beyond the COVID-19 pandemic:

1. SDGs and their trends
2. Industry 4.0 and impact on SDGs
3. Industry 5.0 and impact on SDGs
4. Sustainability and digitalisation
5. Digital manufacturing
6. E-commerce and digitalisation
7. Technology and innovation
8. Innovation promotion
9. Service innovation
10. Process innovation
11. Digitalisation and new techniques influencing the acquisition of SDGs
12. Vertical networking
13. Integration of smart technologies
14. Horizontal integration
15. Process reengineering
16. Value chain
17. Exponential technologies
18. Resilient infrastructure
19. Inclusive and sustainable industrialisation
20. People-Planet-Prosperity from an Industry 4.0 perspective
21. Sustainable, human-centric and resilient industry from an Industry 5.0 perspective

Prof. Dr. Dan-Cristian Dabija
Prof. Dr. Catalina Soriana Sitnikov
Prof. Dr. Anca Bandoi
Prof. Dr. Dana Danciulescu
Prof. Dr. Cristinel Vasiliu
Guest Editors

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