Semantics, A Key Concept in Interoperability of Research Information -The Flanders Research Funding Semantics Case

Introduction In a knowledge-based economy, a good overview of the scientific and technological portfolio is essential for policy formation and driving knowledge transfer to the industry and the broad public. In order to enhance open innovation, the Flemish public administration has created a Flanders research information portal (FRIS, http://www.researchportal.be) that integrates information available from its data providers (research institutions, funding organizations...) using the CERIF (The Common European Research Information Format) standard. Although this standard allows for almost unlimited flexibility for modelling the research information, it has limitations when it comes down to communication to end-users, in terms of semantics. However, interoperability of research information is only meaningful when a well-defined semantics is used. This paper describes the implementation of a business semantics tool on data concepts and classifications for research funding as a means to unambiguously exchange and interpret these data.