Aim and Motivation

The aim of STI International is to drive forward the definition, development and outreach of scientific foundations and technological reference frameworks required for the adoption of semantic technologies at corporate and public level. As one of the central activities for this, the STI Research Roadmap Service defines and maintains a roadmap for future research in semantic technologies that identifies relevant techniques and trends. This will be used for planning the activities among STI Members. In particular, the STI research roadmap will:

• initiate & coordinate the development of collectively agreed visions and realizations plans for future semantic technology developments
• support the collaboration and exchange among senior researchers and industrial practitioners
• define the basis for coordinated and consolidated research among STI International members, research projects, and other interested third party organizations
• collect, analyze, and integrate technological Specifications, Requirements, and Definitions from projects
• develop and disseminate Common Conceptual Models and Terminologies
• facilitate strategic planning of future project proposals
• define the basis for standardization and strategic future planning in consultancy with funding bodies

What We Offer

Roadmapping is the process that provides information to make better technology investment decisions by identifying critical technologies and technology gaps and identifying ways to leverage R&D investments. The goal is to understand technologies; its results can address firms to effectively change strategies and compete in increasingly complex environments. Aroadmap consists of a target vision and a plan to achieve that vision.

In this service, we develop and maintain the STI research roadmap. This will cover the following topic areas that have been identified as promising for future research:

• Ontologies and Ontology Engineering
• Knowledge Acquisition, Annotation and Sharing
• Web Services
• Social Networks

We will coordinate with both affiliated and external projects to implement the roadmap service. For each area covered by the service, we will identify one project, which will coordinate and champion the roadmap compilation. The timeline will therefore depend on the project own timeline. As most of these projects are expected to be Framework 7 Call 1 projects, we plan to finalise the roadmap by end of 2008. For further details, we refer to the comprehensive description of the STI roadmap service (available as PDF).

Benefits

The following lists the benefits of the Research Roadmap Service for the different stakeholders of STI International.