Researchers and practitioners argue that in the global context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, also labelled Industry 4.0, the regional dimension of industrial development remains equally essential. A region that effectively implements the concept of Industry 4.0 can accelerate by enhancing the manufacturing energy efficiency, thus contributing to the goals of the “Green Deal” policy. Therefore, to support the policy-making process, it is necessary to develop analytical tools exploring the determinants of the Industry 4.0 development. This paper presents a methodology of strategic analysis of a region in terms of the Industry 4.0 development potential. The core of the methodology is an extended Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis. The study identifies regional strengths and weaknesses, external incentives and disincentives, internal opportunities and threats, and external opportunities and threats with regard to the development of Industry 4.0, related technologies and the potential of increasing manufacturing energy efficiency. The research procedure is exemplified by the case of Podlaskie Voivodeship in Poland. The results of this study demonstrate the robustness of the proposed approach. The elaborated methodology can be used by decision-makers in designing strategies for the development of fourth-generation industry at a regional level.

Modern cities face many challenges related to globalisation, metropolisation and digitalisation. The smart city concept, which has been gaining popularity in recent years, is considered an answer to their needs. One of the paradigms of modern smart cities is the Internet of Things. This article aims to identify the main research directions and trends in the scientific literature in the field of Internet-of-Things-based smart cities. The author of the paper conducted a bibliometric analysis of publications from 2012–2021, collected from the Web of Science, Scopus and IEEE Xplore databases. The methodology includes: (i) the selection of databases and key words, (ii) defining search criteria, (iii) data export, creation of an aggregate database and record selection, and (iv) the analysis of the results and identification of the major research trends. The study involved 1019 publications. The last stage of the research process identified the leading countries, institutions, journals, and authors in terms of publication activity, as well as the most frequently occurring terms. The key word analysis allowed identifying five main research directions: IoT application domains in smart cities, IoT architecture for smart cities, energy, security and privacy and data. Within each area, the main research themes have been identified, and selected publications have been reviewed.