Production Planning & Control

Hybrid Human-AI Collaborative Networks

Hybrid Collaborative Networks (HCNs), involving human-AI collaboration, are emerging as central to value creation in digitally enabled, globally distributed and socio-technically managed ecosystems. Based on the complex interplay between humans and artificial intelligence, these networks combine very heterogeneous actors—such as organizations, individuals, intelligent systems, embodied AI, and platforms—interacting across physical, digital, and organizational boundaries. Understanding the dynamics of such networks is critical to ensure their design, management, resilience, adaptability and sustained performance in rapidly changing environments. Analysing and managing the dynamic nature of HCNs includes examining how hybrid collaborative structures emerge, evolve, adapt, and dissolve over time. The dynamics of interactive performance and role distribution for such networks, but also the change of collaboration patterns over time, together with the managerial frameworks required to ensure adaptive governance of HCNs open strong scientific challenges, where technological added-value should be deeply associated with socio-human approaches.

The 26 years of scientific background developed by PRO-VE in designing and managing collaborative networks stands as the basis to design and manage the life cycle of hybrid human – AI collaborative networks. The very adaptative and changing nature of HCNs calls for a very open multidisciplinary science of collaborative networks, where engineering disciplines collaborate constantly with socio-human and managerial scientists. Beyond the complexity to ensure effective human-AI integration, scalability and evolution of AI systems or trust in hybrid collaboration, require defining innovative design methods and frameworks, adaptive governance and life-cycle management models.

PRO-VE 2026 is a forum for sharing and discussing current developments and experiences regarding the role of collaborative networks in the age of combined intelligence between humans and AI. Contributions to this special issue are selected from the papers submitted to the conference. A limited number of self-submission papers can be accepted for publication in this SI.

The SI aims to integrate multiple and diverse disciplines such as Engineering, Managerial and Socio-Human sciences: industrial and electrical engineering, computer science, manufacturing, organization science, logistics, management, and social sciences, among others.

Topics of the special issue include:

• Digital platforms for HCNs
• Collaborative dynamics among human and AI teams
• Agile design and management of hybrid networks
• Design of AI teammates
• Knowledge life cycle in distributed cognitive systems
• Collaboration and coopetition in untrustworthy environments
• Life cycle of collaborative cognitive cyber-physical systems
• Combination of human expertise with AI systems
• Scalability and adaptability of HCNs
• Collective decision making, value creation and creativity
• Digital twins for HCNs
• Governance framework for HCNs
• Understanding and explainability of HCN decisions
• Advanced collaborative robotics
• Complex hybridization of collaboration – organizations, people, smart machines, intelligent systems
• Resilience & antifragility in HCNs
• Ethics, security, & trust in HCNs
• AI integration for logistics and transportation networks
• AI for collaborative risk and crisis management
• Society 5.0 and collaborative networks
• CN applications and case studies in multiple fields

Guest Editor biographies

Rosanna Fornasiero is director of research at CNR (National Council of Research-Italy). Her research areas include Supply Chain Management, operations management, and technology roadmapping. She has experience as project coordinator of several European projects in H2020 and Horizon Europe. She is coordinator of the Roadmapping group of the National Cluster of Intelligent Factories and she acts as cluster manager. She is contract professor at the University of Padova at the Faculty of Engineering. She collaborates with industrial associations and companies on regional research. She is an active member of some scientific societies in the field of Management Engineering and Economics (IFIP, SOCOLNET, EUROMA, POMS). She is author of more than 70 papers, and co-editor of 3 Springer books. She is part of editorial board of Production Planning and Control.

Dr. Luis M. Camarinha-Matos is Full Professor in Robotics & Intelligent Manufacturing at the NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal. He was Director of the Center of Technology and Systems (CTS) of UNINOVA during 2 mandates and is the leader of the Collaborative Networks & Distributed Industrial Systems research group at CTS. Also, he was the Coordinator of the PhD program on Electrical and Computer Engineering at NOVA for 16 years. He has participated in many international and national projects, both as a researcher and as a project coordinator. He is a founding member and president of SOCOLNET – Society of Collaborative Networks. He is a member of IFIP WG 5.5 (founder), WG5.7, and Domain Committee on IoT. Also, senior life member of IEEE, namely the Industrial Electronics Society and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society. His main areas of interest include collaborative enterprise networks, intelligent manufacturing, cyber-physical systems, digital transformation, human-AI collaboration, and elderly care. He has more than 530 publications in referred journals, conferences proceedings and book chapters. He has participated in the Editorial Board of 30 journals (in different periods), including IEEE Trans. Industrial Informatics, IEEE Latin America Transactions, European J Industrial Engineering, etc. He has chaired the International Program Committee of more than 60 conferences, being the founder of the PRO-VE, BASYS, DoCEIS and YEF-ECE series of conferences. He has been a member of the Program Committee of more than 460 other conferences. He has acted as an evaluator of proposals for several international funding organizations, including the European Commission and 16 other countries. In 2009 he got the Doctor Honoris Causa by University “Politehnica” of Bucharest, Romania, and included in the Standford’s list of the top 2% of the world’s most highly cited scientists since its first edition.

Pr. Dr. Ing. Xavier Boucher Professor in Industrial Management at Center for Biomedical and Healthcare Engineering – Mines Saint Etienne. His main research orientations are focusing on Territorial Healthcare Systems. Active member of several scientific societies in the field of Industrial Engineering (IFIP, SOCOLNET,  SAGIP, IFAC), he has participated to several EU projects, with the role of Coordinator for CODEMO (2023-2026), scientific coordinator for Mines Saint-Etienne for FA 4.0, DIGIFoF, OMIKA2. Prof. Boucher serves as Associated Editor for Journal of Decision Systems and member of Editorial Board for International Journal on Information Technology Management. He has published more than 50 articles in international & national scientific journals or book chapters, as well as more than 110 communications in international conferences. He publishes notably in Medical Decision Making, Computers in Industry, CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and technology, International Journal of Computer Integrated Systems, Journal of Decision Systems.

Pr. Dr Ing. Ángel Ortiz is a Full Professor of Operations Management at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), where he has built his academic career since 1994. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering (UPV, 1998) and is a member of the Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP). His research bridges operations, logistics and supply chain management with enterprise engineering, business-process management and decision-support systems, combining rigorous modelling with applied, industry-driven work. He is an active member of several scientific societies in the field of Industrial Engineering (IFIP, SOCOLNET, IFAC and ADINGOR). He has published more than 60 articles in international journals (e.g., Production Planning & Control, EJOR, Int. J. of Production Economics, Int. J. of Production Research, Omega, Computers in Industry, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Journal of Cleaner Production) and co-edited five Springer volumes. He has been an invited/visiting professor in Sweden, France, China, Argentina, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Brazil. I have participated in more than 15 European projects and in several projects with companies from different sectors (automotive, textile, retail, tiles,…).