In this chapter, the Interoperability Act and SEMIC-guidelines will be covered briefly on a high level, and the emphasis of the content will be in providing practical user guides on how to use FI-Platform.
What is interoperability?
Public sector interoperability is what enables administrations to cooperate and make public services function across borders, across sectors and across organisational boundaries. This benefits people and businesses who depend on these connected services. In addition, interoperability ensures access to up-to-date information across sector levels. The basic conditions of interoperability are set out in the European Interoperability Framework (EIF)[1], which was introduced in chapter 1.
Interoperable Europe Act
In 2022, the European Commission adopted the proposal for the Interoperable European Act, the objective of which is to strengthen cross-border interoperability and cooperation in the public sector across the European Union. The act provides elements for soft infrastructure: software, guidelines, checklist, frameworks, and IT tools such as interoperability platforms, data models and simply, not needing to fill in the same attributes or details on different platforms again and again. The regulation is currently at a proposal stage.
The proposal sets out a four-pillared structure that assists public administration in fulfilling this objective:
- The first pillar creates an Interoperable Europe Board, which is a Member State co-owned entity furthering the development of a common strategic agenda on interoperability. It offers support in operational implementations, as well as monitors the progress of interoperability solutions.
- The second pillar introduces mandatory interoperability assessments which apply to any change to, or introduction of, an information system (component) of cross-border relevance that enables public services to be delivered or managed electronically.
- The third pillar consists of an Interoperable European Portal, which is a community platform and one-stop shop for shared and reusable interoperability solutions. These may be catalogues of recognized interoperability assets that can be reused by administrations and in policymaking, such as digital tools, specifications or solutions.
- The fourth pillar introduces innovation and support measures which have the objective of promoting policy experimentation, developing skills and scaling up of interoperability solutions for reuse.
To reach its goals, the Commission will adopt a renewed EIF, which is based on a proposal by the future Interoperable Europe Board. This new EIF will focus on concrete implementation recommendations, including for EU data spaces, in close coordination with the European Data Innovation Board. It will further support the development of sectoral interoperability specializations aligned with the EIF, such as the EIF for smart cities and communities (EIF4SCC). The Commission wishes to ensure close interaction with its GovTech cooperation and support activities within EU innovation instruments. Lastly, the Commission wishes to ensure that reporting and monitoring on interoperability is fully aligned and integrated into the relevant EU policy monitoring tracks.[2]
More information about the Interoperable Europe Act here
Interoperable Europe (former ISA²)
The Interoperable Europe community provides a meeting place for communities to share and use interoperability solutions. Also, here you can follow news and events about government related interoperability. They also provide an EIF Toolbox as guidance for national authorities to align their national interoperability frameworks with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF)
More information about the Interoperable Europe Community here
SEMIC Support Centre
The SEMIC Support Centre creates solutions to help European public authorities to perform smooth cross-border and cross-domain data exchange.
More information about the SEMIC Support Centre here
SEMIC Style Guide for semantic engineers
The SEMIC Style Guide is a document that defines principles and rules to be applied to semantic data specifications. The objective is to foster the use of standards by offering guidelines and expert advice on semantic interoperability for public administrations. The Style Guide is primarily intended for semantic engineers, data architects and knowledge modelling specialists who are acting as editors or reusers of Core Vocabularies and Application Profiles. The main purpose of the style guide is to provide guidance and decision-making support for the creators, maintainers and publishers of the Core Vocabularies and Application Profiles. In the context of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) this style guide primarily addresses the Semantic Interoperability layer. The main part of the document is organised as a series of self-contained rules and guidelines.
More information about the SEMIC Style Guide here
SEMIC Style Guide in the FI-Platform
The SEMIC Style Guide describes connections between the content of information both in a human-readable and in machine-readable way. The key difference between the SEMIC Style Guide and the FI-Platform is that the latter describes these simultaneously, whereas SEMIC first describes the contents in human-readable UML notation and then generates the machine-readable version from that UML presentation. The FI-Platform presents the metadata in UML-like visualisation, but does not follow in detail the regular structure and logic used in UML. FI-Platform supports the presentation of semantic meanings and connections from the very beginning, by using the specifications of linked data and semantic web (RDF, OWL, SHACL).
The FI-platform also follows the naming conventions of the SEMIC Style Guide, as the platform automatically creates an URI identification for each resource (concept, class, code etc.). The actual implementation is done using IRI addresses, but the IRI of the FI-Platform is URI compatible and subsequently follows the necessary web standards. Therefore, the FI-Platform adheres to all relevant SEMIC Style Guide rules.
Source material:
[1] COM(2022) 710, 2. Driving interoperable public sector digitalisation com2022710_0.pdf (europa.eu)
[2] COM(2022) 710 com2022710_0.pdf (europa.eu)