Human Work Interaction Design 2026 (HWID 2026)

Harmonisation of Human and Machine Intelligence in the 5th Industrial Revolution (5IR) Workplace

Working conference of the IFIP WG 13.6 Human Work Interaction Design 

June 17-18, 2026

University of West London, St. Mary’s Road, London (United Kingdom)

Theme

Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Metaverse, and Digital Twin (DT) technologies, as they become smarter, present risks of increased reliance on such technologies in the workplace. Human beings may discount their thinking capabilities and abdicate their agency, including those related to creative problem solving, to machine intelligence. Rather than completely automating tasks and asking the worker to remain in a supervisory or backup role, augmentation seeks to enable cooperation between the worker and the machine. If this concept is well studied to enable efficacy and efficiency at work, efforts must still be made in HWID research to enable well-being, trust, and ensure human control and governance of the outcomes within these worker-machine teams.

The conference calls for inclusive approaches for unpacking Industry 5.0, through the integration of human and social sciences, arts, design, and humanities insights and expertise in machine applications. This call seeks contributions that explore the augmentation of human cognition in line with human values through research of new frameworks, models, and approaches for Industry 5.0, Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) that focus on a harmonisation of human ability and wellbeing, while simultaneously ensuring human beings can make effective use of 5IR technologies, including machine intelligence in the workplace.

Accordingly, it is essential to revisit and re-conceptualize the notion of work augmentation in automation-driven contexts by integrating extremely relevant dimensions such as worker well-being, human autonomy, and system transparency into its definition.

Industry 5.0 is a concept that builds on the earlier aims of Industry 4.0. Where the Industry 4.0 focus is on productivity and efficiency, Industry 5.0 aims to place the wellbeing of the worker at the centre of the production process and on maintaining sustainability goals. Harmonisation of human and machine intelligence interaction in the 5IR would require the ability to measure, analyze, and apply affective data of the human and workplace environment to design, integrate, and optimize the employee experience and wellbeing within the workplace environment.

This edition of the HWID working conference aims to attract submissions from professionals in academia, national labs, and industry, as well as from students. The event will provide a platform to discuss tools, procedures, and professional competencies essential for harmonizing human and machine intelligence, central to Industry 5.0.

Topics of Interest

• Human-centric UI design with 5IR technologies in the workplace
• Human-AI interaction and collaboration
• Sociotechnical Theory and Methods for 5IR
• Collaborative systems design for Industry 5.0
• Digital Human Twins in the future of work
• Behavioral analytics and data modeling
• Safety and well-being of workers in the workplace (e.g., trust and training)
• Ethics, policy, and law in 5IR
• Case studies and implications of 5IR technologies (e.g., discretionary effort, job satisfaction)
• Education and coaching to afford harmonisation of human and 5IR technologies in the workplace
• Human and social sciences, creative arts and designs

Program

All times are in British Summer Time (UTC+1).

Printable version available here: PDF

Keynote

Panel

Human Work Design and AI: Designing Meaningful Work in the Age of Intelligent Systems

Panellists:

• Matias Duarte —  Google, USA
• Lindsey DeWitt Prat —  Bold Insight, France
• Teresa Macchia —  Rolls-Royce Holdings, UK
• Torkil Clemmensen — Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
• Judith Molka-Danielsen — Molde University College, Norway

Chair:

• José Abdelnour-Nocera — University of West London, UK

Welcome by Prof. Anthony Hilton, Deputy Vice Chancellor — UWL, UK

Important Dates

• Submission deadline: February 8 February 23
• Notification to authors: March 6 April 1
• Camera ready: March 27 April 27 
• Conference: June 17-18, 2026

Submissions

We invite authors to submit full papers (6 to 12 pages, excluding references) formatted according to the LNCS template available on the Springer website: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines

The link to the submission system: https://meteor.springer.com/HWID2026

Each paper will be reviewed by three reviewers. The collection of all accepted papers will be distributed to the participants as digital proceedings before the conference. During the review process, the reviewers will be asked to evaluate whether an extended version of the paper is suitable for an IFIP Springer book (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology) that will be edited after the conference.

Registration

The registration to the conference is now open: https://paymentportal.uwl.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/university-of-west-london/miscellaneous/harmonisation-of-human-and-machine-intelligence-in-the-5th-industrial-revolution5ir-workplace

The registration fee covers coffee breaks, lunches, and the social dinner.

Accommodation

For the accommodation, we can suggest some hotels in the area:

• Hotel Xanadu
• Ibis Styles London Ealing
• The Drayton Court 
• DoubleTree by Hilton London Ealing 
• Best Western Northfields Ealing Hotel
• Hotel 55

Organizers

General Chairs

Program Chairs

Paper Chairs

Program Committee

Åsa Cajander, Uppsala University, Sweden
Torkil Clemmensen, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Daniela Fogli, University of Brescia, Italy
Anant Bhaskar Garg, HaritaDhara Research Development and Education Foundation, India
Frederica Gonçalves, University of Madeira
Antony William Joseph, Aalto University, Finland
Arminda Guerra Lopes, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal
Luca Marconi, University of Milano Bicocca, Italy
Mashrura Musharraf, Aalto University, Finland
Philippe Palanque, University of Toulouse, France
Stefano Valtolina, University of Milan, Italy