Manifesto for Reusable Ontologies
The complexity of ICT systems is raising increasing concerns: such systems involve enhancements, updates and reconfigurations at a scale that is unprecedented today. The challenges is to take into account the existence of:
- multiple organisations (e.g., in a supply chain, in a data space),
- multiple application domains (e.g., energy and transport using electric vehicles),
- multiple technologies (e.g., agentic AI, LLM, cybersecurity, federated learning),
- multiple lifecycle phases (e.g., design, operation, retirement),
- multiple description needs (e.g., digital product passport, policies), and
- multiple interoperability points.
Ensuring that interoperability points are described consistently is critical for the ICT system to be trustworthy and achieve its goals. This can only be achieved through the use of commonly agreed representations of concepts, i.e. ontologies to describe interoperability.
In a world of interconnected systems, following the FAIR principles for data exchange and using ontologies across domain with expert terminology is essential.
Abbreviations
ICT Information Communication Technology
LLM Large Language Model
FAIR Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable
Principles
- We practice reusability by design when developing an ontology.
- We support extension, extraction and specialization.
- We provide test for robustness and consistency.
- We define ontologies under a logical formalism.
- We follow a methodology enabling use case definition, validation, publication, sharing and modification.
- We govern and reach consensus based on user needs, use cases and roadmaps.
- We ensure proper version management.
- We support cross-cutting characteristics (e.g., security, resilience, or privacy).
- We base ontologies on open license and open standards.
- We document ontologies to be easily understandable by people (e.g., through visual representations).