– Challenges and Opportunities –

Collaborative Networks play a key role in the ongoing process of digital transformation in industry and services. Although the Collaborative Network (CN) area is relatively young, and similar to several other domains, a number of major milestones can be identified in its “revolution” through the last decades. These milestones can be listed as follows:
-Collaborative Networks 1.0 – focused on goal-oriented networks (e.g., addressing the supply chains, extended enterprises, virtual enterprises, and virtual organizations)
-Collaborative Networks 2.0 – focused on CN breeding environments (e.g., addressing the business ecosystems, industry clusters, industrial districts, and professional virtual communities)
-Collaborative Networks 3.0 – focused on the interplay among multiple CNs (e.g., addressing the hybrid value system networks, and co-creation networks).

Research and development is now beginning to address Collaborative Networks 4.0, for which some of the main distinctive features include hybridization (networks consisting of organizations, people, machines and intelligent systems), collaboration between humans and intelligent autonomous systems, distributed cognitive systems, accountability, ethics and coping with risks and disruptions, handling large amounts of data, monetization of collaboration, creation of a collaboration culture, collaboration creativity, mass collaboration, and new business models focusing on collaborative value creation, among others.

PRO-VE 2020 aims at addressing diverse viewpoints on such timely challenges. It will provide a forum for sharing experiences, discussing trends, and identifying opportunities, thus introducing innovative solutions for the new generation of collaborative networks in the era of digital transformation. Contributions are invited from multiple and diverse areas and disciplines, including: computer science, manufacturing, industrial, electrical and computing engineering, social sciences, organization science, and technologies, among others, which are well tuned to both the interdisciplinary nature of the research and development on CN 4.0, as well as the spirit of the PRO-VE Working Conferences.

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