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Collaborative networks manifest in a large variety of forms, including virtual organizations, virtual enterprises, dynamic supply chains, professional virtual communities, collaborative virtual laboratories, etc. A large body of empiric knowledge related to collaborative networks is already available, but there is an urgent need to consolidate this knowledge and build the foundations for a more sustainable development of this area. The establishment of a scientific discipline for collaborative networks is a strong instrument in achieving this purpose. In this article the main characteristics of a "discipline" are analyzed in the context of collaborative networks, showing that the pre-conditions necessary for building this new discipline are available.

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The notion of Industry 4.0 is having a catalyzing effect for the integration of diverse new technologies towards a new generation of more efficient, agile, and sustainable industrial systems. From our analysis, collaboration issues are at the heart of most challenges of this movement. Therefore, an analysis of collaboration needs to be made at all dimensions of Industry 4.0 vision, complemented with a mapping of these needs to the existing results from the collaborative networks area. In addition to such mapping, some new research challenges for the collaborative networks community, as induced by Industry 4.0, are also identified.

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