Digital sovereignty in industries – the example of technical-organizational systems for the machine tool industry

Digital souvereignty refers to the ability and capability to use digital technology competently for one's own purposes in a way that one's own ability to act self-determined are at least maintained, and moreover, grow as much as possible. Digital sovereignty affects individual employees and groups of employees in their work contexts. This raises questions about the (partial) autonomy and learning facilitation of working conditions (organization and technology). Digital sovereignty furthermomre affects the entire company. Small and medium sized companies in particular are challenged to use digital technology and to expand their knowledge base and their employees‘ competencies as much as possible without becoming extremely dependent on only a few technology providers or platforms.

The project looks at examples from the machine tool industry, including its suppliers and consists of four components:

1) Analyses of trends with regard to the digitalization of the economy in the areas of technology, organization and qualification as well as prototypical business models of machine tool manufacturers
2) Interdisciplinary network of doctoral students, within which young scientists investigate selected aspects of the topics mentioned under 1).
3) A series of symposia on “Digital Sovereignty in the Economy“ which is intended to promote professional discourse between science, business, politics and intermediaries.
4) A series of publications on the above-mentioned topics, in which in particular the contributions to the symposia and the results of the trend and business model analyses are published.

The project is funded by DR. JOHANNES HEIDENHAIN GmbH. The iit works on its own responsibility, without outside influence or instruction in all questions of content and scientific methods.