The concept of Industry 5.0 was coined by the European Commission for the need to integrate European priorities with respect to social and environmental issues and drive companies and industries to evolve and become more sustainable, resilient, and human-centric ^[1][2][3,5]. Despite this concept, some research publications reveal that the concept of Industry 5.0 had been introduced by Michael Rada in social media in 2015, subsequently investigated by many researchers, and, finally, legitimized by the EC in 2021, so that the 2030 goals for the European Union could be achieved ^[3][4][5][12,13,14]. Industry 5.0 is an ideology of future industrial evolution aimed at using the creativity of human beings operating in combination with efficient, intelligent, and accurate systems ^[6][15]. These changes at the industrial level and in relation to technological innovations require rethinking the role of industries and their positioning and role in society ^[1][3].

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis, it was possible to highlight the vulnerability of companies and industries to economic, technological, and social adversities. It was then necessary to reconsider the existing working approaches and methodologies, improving industries in terms of resistance and resilience, as well as sustainability and human factor centricity ^[7][8][16,17]. Furthermore, the turning point and starting point for the transition from Industry 4.0 to 5.0 focuses on changing the relationship between humans and intelligent systems ^[9][18]. While Industry 4.0 was only about automating processes with smart digital technologies with the aim of improving efficiency and optimizing industrial processes, neglecting the human factor, Industry 5.0 focuses on the synergy and pairing of humans and machines, where human desire and intention will prevail ^[10][19].

However, the concept of Industry 5.0 is evolving, and, therefore, there are diverse definitions elaborated by various industry practitioners and researchers ^[6][15]. The most consensual definition among researchers meets the one defined by the EC, whose industrial future is dependent on the consideration and weighting of human-centred, sustainable, and resilient production systems ^[9][18].

Focusing on sustainability, Industry 5.0 may be the first to be human-driven, which is based on the principle of industrial recycling, i.e., the 6R’s policy: Recognize, Reconsider, Realize, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, so that it is possible to prevent waste and, at the same time, create/produce customized products with high quality ^[6][15]. However, there is a controversy associated with the ideology of Industry 5.0, i.e., how this strategy might contribute to sustainable development ^[11][20]. On the contrary, Industry 5.0 can be associated with the goal of bringing humans back into factories, where human and machines are paired and work in full collaboration in order to increase the efficiency of the production process through human cognitive capabilities (creativity and knowledge) and interconnecting them with the workflows of intelligent systems ^[6][9][10][15,18,19]. It is a similar perspective, in which professionals in industries and companies, information technicians, and researchers are required to focus and concentrate on human factors in the implementation of new technological systems of Industry 5.0 ^[6][9][15,18].

On the technological side, Industry 5.0 can be considered the era of the socially smart factory, or “Social Smart Industry”, whose social business networks converge with people for seamless communication, namely, cyber-physical production systems interconnected with the human factor synergistically ^[6][9][12][15,18,21]. Additionally, Industry 5.0 is a human-centric solution, with humans and technologies, such as collaborative robots, working together hand in hand. Machines will be used for work-intensive or repetitive tasks, while humans will oversee personalization and critical thinking ^[6][15]. Another concept defines Industry 5.0 as a symmetric innovation that will be used for the next generation of global governance, whose goal is to create safe outputs for production by segregating automation systems ^[6][15].

Industry 5.0 involves again humans in global industrial environments and intends to empower them through the incorporation of innovative technologies. The main idea of this strategy is the convergence of several aspects of human centrality, systems resilience, and sustainability, through industrial harmonization between machines and humans ^[9][18]. However, the ideologies and concepts of Industry 5.0 are open, evolving, and expansive, but always based on the three fundamental pillars described above. Thus, the goal of Industry 5.0 is to place the well-being of workers at the centre of production processes, maintaining a balance between humans and machine systems, and aggregating the ideals of resilience and sustainable development at ecological, economic, and social levels.

Industry 4.0 has led to rapid technological advances and high industrial performance ^[13][22]. In parallel, the concept of Industry 5.0 has flourished, with the intention to integrate physical and virtual spaces through human-centricity with technology, namely, the application of Internet of Things (IoT), robots, and augmented reality to achieve a smart industry and society of digital innovation ^[14][23]. Interactivity between humans and machines is considered one of the key differences between Industry 4.0 and 5.0, as when this interaction increases, there is an empowerment of operators’ expression in how products and services are personalized, creating synergistic relationships between technological and social systems ^[13][14][22,23].

Industry 5.0 requires human beings to undergo a socio-technical evolution, i.e., a paradigm shift in the role of the operator as the central focus of manufacturing and production systems through intelligent strategies and approaches underpinned by advanced information and communication technologies ^[13][22]. Industry 5.0 ideology can be applied to cyber-physical production systems (CPPS), from their conceptualization, learning, and integration ^[15][24], and including a human perspective ^[16][25], to data interoperability and information sharing ^[17][26] using 5G and 6G networks ^[18][27]; automatic identification and traceability (Auto-ID) systems ^[19][28]; Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems for work assistance, organization, and supervision ^[20][29]; industrial simulation ^[21][30]; user application of Augmented Reality systems ^[22][23][31,32]; and also collaborative robots or cobots to achieve intelligent manufacturing systems ^[24][25][33,34].

The introduction of robotics in production systems can increase productivity, but also increase the well-being of workers, as well as improve the health and safety conditions of workplaces ^[26][27][35,36]. Robots and their human-robot collaborative environments leverage individual and technological capabilities together, making it possible to overcome limitations in the execution of awkward, repetitive, and potentially harmful tasks and operations, improving the workplace, as well as the repeatability and reliability of processes ^[26][35]. Thus, collaborative robots support and reduce low-value-added operations for operators, while workers’ potential is harnessed for advanced operations and tasks that require greater sensitivity, mental processes, rapid self-adaptation ^[13][26][22,35], customization, and critical thinking ^[22][31]. In scenarios of cooperative or collaborative sharing of workspaces between humans and robots, it is necessary to assess human factors before, during, and after the whole human-robot interaction, so that analysis and evaluation of working conditions can be done ^[22][31].

A particularity of the use of robots is the development of the Digital Twin (DT), which represents a high-fidelity, virtual, physical entity with real-time communication ^[21][28][30,37]. These DT systems are technological advances identified for Industry 5.0 that, together with simulation systems, allow production optimization and, at the same time, perform operational safety tests ^[29][38]. Moreover, although DTs are technological models focused on connectivity and modelling of production systems ^[28][37], they can be used to combat educational inequality by providing learning and training through tele-operability ^[30][39], and they can be included in educational systems ^[29][38]. Interactive productive systems with robots can also be used to create training and learning environments ^[31][40].

With the introduction of Industry 5.0 and human-centric production systems, human-robot interactions raise questions regarding safety ^[32][41] and ethical issues ^[20][29]. Safety requirements are higher, and, therefore, safety strategies need to be adopted to achieve higher degrees of reliability and production flexibility through dynamic and synergistic measures (from both human and robotic perspectives) ^[32][41]. Ethical issues concern the use of autonomous intelligent systems, such as robots and artificial intelligence, and should have been taken into consideration from the very beginning of the design processes of new digital production systems ^[20][33][29,42].

However, companies and industries must put human beings at the centre of production processes by developing and applying reliable technologies that provide better working environments and improved well-being for workers ^[34][43]. Thus, it is important to retain and apply the organizational memory of past experiences and operators so that successful experiences can be reused ^[35][44], making it essential to understand the experience and knowledge of operators during work operations ^[34][43].

For companies and industries to achieve the ideologies and benefits of Industry 5.0, they would need to draw on and make use of Industry 4.0 digital technologies, such as cyber-physical systems; big data technologies; and human-machine interaction technologies, such as artificial intelligence, digital twins, and collaborative robots ^[19][28]. The European Commission has identified six guidelines to be considered as Industry 5.0 technologies: individualized human-machine interaction, intelligent bio-inspired technologies, simulation and digital twins, data transmission, storage and analysis technologies, artificial intelligence, and technologies for ecological autonomy ^[19][28].