Data Economy

The SAREF ontology suite suffers from inconsistencies across extensions, due to historically parallel development efforts. While recent STFs (641, 653) addressed these through new ontology patterns and a revised framework, important steps remain unfunded: publication of updated documentation, integration of conformance checks, and automation of ETSI specification generation.
With this fellowship, I directly support the ICT Rolling Plan's "Key Enablers – Data Interoperability" priority. This activity enhances semantic interoperability in IoT contexts, ensuring continuity in the evolution of a foundational European ontology standard (SAREF). It also aligns with EC expectations for faster standard evolution and broader stakeholder involvement, notably in sectors such as smart cities, energy, and digital twins.
The main challenge is sustainability: reducing the manual effort needed to maintain and extend SAREF. The current publication workflow lacks automation and centralization, leading to delays and fragmentation. The revision of the SAREF Pipeline software and the automation of specification generation are technically complex due to the lack of existing tools for parsing OWL ontologies into ETSI-compliant documents. This proposal addresses these challenges through targeted, expert-driven development efforts, based on proven tools and methods already piloted in past STFs.

Simplified ITAM adoption, thanks to practical guidance and appropriate skill development, can financially benefit all European public and private organisations, reduce the European impact of ICT on the environment, and reduce economic and technological dependence on non-European companies.

Simplified ITAM adoption thanks to practical guidance and appropriate skill development can be financially beneficial to all public and private organizations in Europe, can reduce European impact of ICT on the environment, and reduce economic and technological dependence on non-European companies. The impact can be huge, as IT assets are everywhere, notably with a growing presence in the industry. Trustworthy data about IT assets is a key enabler for IT security that is now crucial in the context of hybrid war at the European eastern border.

With my activity, I contribute to the following impact from a standardization viewpoint:
Advancing architecture standards in line with European priorities (data space platforms from Europe)
Creating IoT standards that consider European results (interoperability based on SAREF, use cases from European applications)
Offering standards on cybersecurity assurance in line with regulation (Cybersecurity act)
Ensuring the availability of standards on AI trustworthiness (including security and privacy) in line with European stakeholders and regulation (AI act)

Accelerating the use of digital twins, as the existence of the semantic repository allows the digital twin to manage semantics while the physical twin is managing data. This methodology will ensure a consistent continuum between the physical twin and the digital twin.

The following impacts are identified at a general level:
The Internet of Things (IoT) addresses many societal challenges including climate change, resource and energy efficiency and ageing.
In the emerging IoT economy, voluntary global standards can accelerate adoption, drive competition, and enable cost-effective introduction of new technologies.
Standardisation facilitates the interoperability, compatibility, reliability, security and efficiency of operations on a global scale among different technical solutions, stimulating industry innovation and providing greater clarity to technology evolution.
Interoperability between IoT networks operated by different companies along the value chain opens up opportunities to address EU Policy objectives, e.g. greater resource efficiency for a more circular economy, sustainable and responsible supply chains through transparency and traceability, and others

The number of connected devices is expected to exceed 20 billion by 2020. This market will be fostered by proper interoperability standards. Europe is strong in IoT innovation and has made significant technical contributions (AIOTI) including in some specific standardization contexts. AIOTI now has a recognized presence at the ISO level, and it is now key to concretize this presence so that European innovation is well represented.