We have heard many inspiring stories on what digitalisation will bring to society: autonomous mobility and sustainable energy systems, safe and secure environment, assisted living for elderly and disabled people, smart farming with higher yields, traceable food quality and low impact on the environment.  

All of them are aspirational and motivating goals, that have been used to justify many research and innovation projects on individual technical ingredients and significant progress is made so far in the implementation.  

But do all the nice ingredients make a good meal? Where are the chefs that takes care of it?  

Most introductions of scientific papers start by referring to the big societal challenges in order to end with a proposition on micro (or today nano) level, leaving it to the imagination of the reader to translate the result in the wider context. Inevitably, this is the consequence of the complexity of our world in which we have built systems of systems of systems… of components. There is insufficient attention for the integration aspects of our digital dreams and there are too many hidden assumptions that “others will take care of it”.  

There are several reasons for this:  

First is the complexity of digital world that no individual organisation, discipline or human being is able to address all aspects,  

Second, there is always a lagging recognition for disciplines that take care of integration aspects.  

Third, depth in research is traditionally more valued than breadth and integration skills that are hardly taught at universities and colleges.

Finally, fear for business model changes may withhold proactive addressing of the integration aspects as they may come with value shifts over the chain.  The urban life is a clear example of an aspiring concept that will require strong integration and orchestration skills for the success of all stakeholders.