The SAREF (Smart Applications REFerence) ontology is in the spotlight as it is a European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) backed contribution to the European data strategy and promotes semantic interoperability in European data spaces.
The purpose of European data spaces is to pool European data in different economic sectors and areas of public interest, including energy, manufacturing industry, health, mobility, and even public services. Their development is supported by the European Commission, to facilitate the exploitation of the value of data for the benefit of the European economy and society. This is part of the EU Data Strategy, and the legislative basis for this strategy is made up of two pillars: the European Data Governance Act and the European Data Act.
The first aims to build trust in data sharing, strengthen mechanisms to increase data availability and overcome technical barriers to data reuse. The second specifies who can create value from the data and under what conditions. Essentially, it aims to facilitate the use of data generated by Internet of Things (IoT) devices by the users of these objects, for example, to benefit from innovative services offered by companies other than the manufacturer of the device.
Standardization and semantic interoperability are presented in the Data Act as playing an essential role in providing technical solutions to guarantee interoperability. The text specifies: “Whereas: (79) Common specifications should be developed in an open and transparent manner, in consultation with industry and relevant stakeholders. The technical specifications for the semantic interoperability of reusable data structures and models (in the form of core vocabularies), ontologies, metadata application profile, reference data in the form of core vocabulary, taxonomies, code lists, authority tables and thesaurus.”
The SAREF ontology, developed by the SmartM2M technical committee, is made up of a core module that allows IoT devices to be described in terms of the services and functions they expose, and the physical parameters they can measure or activate. Extensions for different domains have been developed: energy, environment, building, smart city, industry and manufacturing, etc. SAREF is a key ontology for the semantic interoperability of IoT applications within and between European data spaces.
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