About the manifesto
The manifesto was prepared by the AIOTI semantic interoperability task force, in charge of the annual workshop on semantic interoperability for digital twin.
About AIOTI
AIOTI or the Alliance for AI, IoT and Edge Continuum Innovation was initiated by the European Commission in 2015 to foster dialogue between IoT and digital twin players in Europe and contribute to the creation of a leading European ecosystem.
AIOTI has published numerous reports:
- 19 reports in 2022,
- 14 reports in 2023,
- 19 reports in 2024,
- 25 reports in 2025,
- 1 report in 2026.
About the semantic interoperability task force
The semantic interoperability task force of AIOTI has the following scope:
- Identification of gaps that hinder the adoption of semantic interoperability practices, including missing (semantic) interoperability standards, technologies, tools and educational material, within AI, IoT and Edge Continuum domains and across these domains, and recommendations for solving them.
- Study of the impact of edge computing on semantic interoperability .
- Promoting the availability, findability, use and development of ontologies and semantic tools to enable semantic interoperability between different actors within AI, IoT and Edge Continuum domains and cross-domains.
- Creation of a landscape of ontologies supporting users in their assessment of the quality and usability of ontologies.
Since its creation in 2015, the task force has published the following reports:
- AIOTI paper on Data to Ontology Mapping R1 (September 2025)
- AIOTI report on 1st Workshop on Semantic Interoperability for Digital Twins (June 2025)
- Int:net Stand.ICT AIOTI Report on the Evolution of interoperability standards (November 2024)
- IntNet AIOTI Information Models Coordination and Governance Standardisation Recommendations (November 2024)
- AIOTI Ontology Landscape Report R1 (December 2021)
- Semantic Tutorials, given at IoT Week 2021 (September 2021)
- Semantic IoT Solutions – A Developer Perspective (October 2019)
- Towards semantic interoperability standards based on ontologies (October 2019)
- Semantic Interoperability for the Web of Things (August 2016)
The task force is also maintaining the web version of the AIOTI Ontology Catalog
About the workshops on semantic interoperability for digital twins
The first workshop was held on 5-6 February 2025 hosted by ERCIM in Sophia Antipolis, France. The report can be found here.
The second workshop was held on 24-25 March 2026 hosted by IHP in Frankfurt Oder, Germany.
Why the manifesto was created
The idea of a manifesto came further from the observation that further synergy should be encouraged between the various initiatives related to semantic interoperability.
- SAREF ontologies: SAREF is a suite of ontologies to enable semantic interoperability in the Internet of Things (IoT). SAREF is used in the JRC code of conduct on smart energy appliances. SAREF also forms the basis of an European standard on an implementation framework for semantic assets.
- IEC standards: development of IEC SRD 63417 (Guidance and plan to develop smart energy ontologies), IEC SRD 63476-1 (smart city system ontology – part 1: gap analysis).
- ISO standards: development of standards related to ontologies on city data models such as ISO/IEC 5087-1 (foundation level concepts), ISO/IEC 5087-2 (city level concepts), ISO/IEC 5087-3 (service level concept for transport), ISO/IEC 5087-4 (service level concepts for public health emergencies); development of standards related to ontology-based interoperability in the field of automation systems and integrations such as ISO 23726-1 (overview and fundamental principles), ISO 23726-3 (industrial data ontology), ISO 23726-100 (schedule data ontology)
- ISO/IEC standards: development of standards related to interoperability such as ISO/IEC 21823-1 (IoT interoperability framework), ISO/IEC 21823-3 (IoT semantic interoperabiliy), ISO/IEC 21723-5 (Behavioural and policy interoperability).
How the manifesto was created
A proposal was made in December 2025 by Antonio Kung, member of the workshop committee. An initial draft was then prepared by Claude Baudoin that was included in the call for contributions to the 2nd workshop on semantic interoperability for digital twins.
Discussions on the manifesto during the workshop were led by a facilitating team (Henon Mengistu Lamboro, Trialog, currently doing PhD on ontology reusability, Amélie Gyrard, Trialog, expert on IoT ontology):
- the draft manifesto was distributed to all participants in the workshop;
- a session on the manifesto was chaired by Antonio Kung (Trialog), with the participation of María Poveda-Villalón (UPM), Raúl Garcia-Castro (UPM), Cornelis Bouter (TNO), Mahda Noura (Siemens AG), Zehor Hounas (EDF);
- informal discussion between Cornelis Bouter (TNO) and Antonio Kung (Trialog) led to a first draft on the rationale (the why) for a manifesto;
- a fishbowl session took place at the end of the day that enabled interesting exchanges;
- a breakout session took place on the second day where the introduction and the initial principles were reviewed, leading to a proposal of 10 principles;
- the web site was prepared during the day, and the result was presented in the closing session.
