Co-located with the International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2025)
20-23 October 2025 - Futuroscope - Poitiers, France
The International Workshop on Ontologies and Conceptual Modeling (OntoCom) is an academic workshop focusing on the practical and formal application of ontologies to conceptual modeling.
The importance of conceptual modeling has grown over the years, and it is now common to find examples of conceptual models being developed and used in various disciplines unrelated to computing, including biology, business, construction, and engineering. Among the reasons for this disciplinary expansion is also the increasing digitalisation of all aspects of modern life, as well as the increased complexity that such digitalisation entails in terms of emerging needs and requirements. The natural consequence is a proliferation of conceptual models of multiple real-world domains which, sooner or later, require data and systems to interoperate and/or integrate. In this emerging scenario, ontology-driven conceptual modeling becomes even more fundamental to modern life due to its intrinsic ability to represent reality in a theoretically and semantically consistent manner. Foundational (or top-level ontologies) have the potential to resolve the difficult problems that derive from a lack of a consistent and sound ontological theory. The benefits that can derive from the application of a foundational ontology include improved mapping to the real-world domain, increased level of communication and understanding among stakeholders, model reuse, semantic integration and interoperability and increased overall efficiency and effectiveness of information systems development and evolution. The application of foundational ontologies can also assist in overcoming the inscrutable nature of most mainstream artificial intelligence methods (i.e. neural networks and machine learning).
We intend to bring together academics, researchers and practitioners (with a background in IS engineering and/or ontology development) to develop an agenda of future collaborations that combine research and industrial expertise.
Contributions in the form of research and research-in-progress papers are welcome. Papers will be reviewed by at least two members of the program committee.
Topics for contributions include, but are not limited to:
What is the relation between ontological semantics, formal semantics, abstract and concrete syntax for visual conceptual modeling languages?
What kind of logical, ontological and epistemological foundations are needed for conceptual modeling?
How can fundamental theoretical research on ontological foundations for conceptual modeling and empirical research fit together?
How can formal ontological theories be used for the analysis and design of conceptual modeling languages (including enterprise modeling and domain-specific modeling languages)?
How are researchers and practitioners in other domains not related to computer science and information systems (such as bioinformatics) using ontologies?
How does ontology inform the process of gathering requirements?
How does ontology support architecture development directly from requirements specifications?
How does ontology help in software design and map to the architectural specification?
How can ontologies be used as run-time artefacts or to inform the design of run-time artefacts?
What is the role of ontology reasoning in the software engineering process?
What is the role of ontology in model-driven development?
How can ontology drive the development of service software?
What are the methodological issues for Ontology-Driven CM and ISE?
How can problems of semantic mismatch between traditional IS modeling paradigms, approaches, techniques, etc. and ontological modeling be overcome?
How can ontology help in the design of development/modeling/programming languages?
How can ontology be used to enhance artificial intelligence?
Workshop paper submission: 11 July 2025
Workshop paper notification: 28 July 2025
Camera-ready submission for paper (in post-conference proceedings): 18 August 2025
The workshop welcomes submissions of research and research-in-progress papers. Submissions should present original work that is not currently under review or published elsewhere.
Regular: 10 pages max (research papers)
Short: 6 pages max (research-in-progress papers)
All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. At least one author of each accepted paper must register and participate in the workshop. Submissions must use the Springer LNCS format and must be in English. Papers should be submitted in PDF format using the EasyChair online submission system. Authors should consult Springer's authors' guidelines and use LNCS proceedings templates, either for LaTeX or for Word, to prepare their papers.
Mike Bennett (Hypercube, UK)
John Beverley (University of Buffalo, USA)
Salvatore Florio (University of Oslo, Norway)
Claudenir M. Fonseca (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Pierre Grenon (National Center for Ontological Research)
Ítalo Oliveira (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Jeffrey Parsons (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Geert Poels (Ghent University, Belgium)
Tiago Prince Sales (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Guendalina Righetti (University of Oslo, Norway)
Marzieh Talebpour (University of Westminster, UK)
Sergio de Cesare (University of Westminster, UK)
Frederik Gailly (Ghent University, Belgium)
Giancarlo Guizzardi (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Chris Partridge (University of Westminster, UK and BORO Solutions, UK)
Oscar Pastor (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain)
For any queries please email Sergio de Cesare (s.decesare@westminster.ac.uk)