Contact our helpdesk
How can we help you? Let us know by reaching out to our helpdesk. Contact us.
Before you submit your request, check our FAQ section below in case it covers your query/issue. For proposals and suggestions related to technical specifications, you're invited to open an issue in the appropriate SEMIC GitHub repository.
Who can help you with what?
Based on your concrete need or question, please reach out to one or several members of the team:
- Overall coordination: Alexandra Balahur.
- Core Vocabularies and Application Profiles: Pavlina Fragkou.
- Base Registries, LDES and the Style Guide: Anastasia Sofou
- SEMIC Community, the Toolchain and the Personal Data Spaces: Claudio Baldassarre.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
General information
The Semantic Interoperability Community develops solutions to help European public administrations perform seamless and meaningful cross-border and cross-domain data exchanges.
The provision of digital cross-border public services requires the exchange of data between public administrations of different EU countries.
Semantic interoperability is a fundamental enabler of such exchanges. It is crucial to agree on the use of common semantic standards, promote transparent and well-documented metadata policies and increase the visibility and reuse of existing semantic interoperability solutions.
Since its inception, SEMIC has contributed to the simplification of the environment in which EU countries exchange data for the delivery of electronic public services, addressing the issues and barriers related to semantic interoperability in the EU.
The Semantic Interoperability Community is supported by the Action on Promoting semantic interoperability amongst the European Union Member States of the former Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA²) Programme, which is now called Interoperable Europe. The SEMIC team facilitates the SEMIC community and coordinates the design and development of technical solutions enabling semantic interoperability.
The mission of SEMIC has always been to promote interoperability as a fundamental enabler to perform seamless and meaningful cross-border and cross-domain data exchanges between EU public administrations.
The Semantic Interoperability Community provides a series of benefits for its members and users:
- A community of practitioners that supports the adoption of semantic interoperability standards through collaborative efforts and the sharing of knowledge and good practices.
- Free access to an European repository of reusable semantic interoperability assets, including technical specifications and knowledge on the domain of semantic interoperability.
- A central point of reference for collecting, organising, storing and making available semantic interoperability assets created by various EU entities.
- Practical support and expert advice to the implementation of semantic interoperability solutions through the execution of pilots that implement ISA² specifications.
The Semantic Interoperability Community brings together a large scope of semantic interoperability enthusiasts. A distinction can be made based on the level of expertise in data semantics. In this sense, there are:
- ‘Technical’ actors (data semantic experts, researchers and academicians, editors and data developers) that are directly involved in the build-up and refinement of data models and specifications.
- ‘Non technical’ actors such as policy-makers in national and EU public administrations which could have a lower level of expertise, but are interested in the impact that interoperability can have on their administrations.
From public administrations and semantic experts to data practitioners in the private sector and the academia, any user interested in semantic interoperability can benefit from SEMIC services through direct support and key knowledge sharing.
Stay connected with the community!
- Follow our SEMIC activity via Interoperable Europe Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
- Contact the SEMIC team under Helpdesk and FAQ.
SEMIC offers solutions, tools and expertise to help European public administrations in the provision of digital cross-border public services requiring data exchange. The Semantic Interoperability Community develops and maintains the following semantic solutions:
- e-Government Core Vocabularies;
- Application Profiles;
- Other vocabularies and semantic specifications.
You will find more information about SEMIC specifications as well as the latest releases under Specifications.
If you would like the Semantic Interoperability to provide support on your project within your local administration, please reach out to us thanks to the contact form that is available here.
Technical information
If you are a semantic expert, directly involved in the build-up and refinement of data models and specifications, you might want to access more technical information.
Each SEMIC specification has its own GitHub repository. On Github, you will find the latest releases of each specifications as well as have the opportunity to interact with the community by raising some issues that you are facing.
The latest releases of each SEMIC specification can be accessed through the dedicated GitHub repository.
Who developed the Core Vocabularies
ISA² programme has developed the e-Government Core Vocabularies for public administrations in an open process with the active involvement of the SEMIC action stakeholders including:
- The e-Government Core Vocabularies Working Group;
- the Directorate-General for Informatics: DG DIGIT - in particular the SEMIC action of the ISA² programme; and
- the Publications Office of the EU.
How the e-Government Core Vocabularies are maintained
The e-Government Core Vocabularies are maintained based on the Process and Methodology for Developing Core Vocabularies.
All changes in the specification are discussed with the e-Government Core Vocabularies Working Group to make sure that changes do not negatively impact the operation of implementations and the interoperability across the network and are publicly communicated.
To find additional information on the general use of e-Government Core Vocabularies, please consult the page on the Practical guide to using the eGovernment Core Vocabularies.
In addition, an e-Government Core Vocabularies Handbook is available for consultation and download: Handbook for using the Core Vocabularies.
The European strategy for data aims at creating a single market for data that will ensure Europe’s global competitiveness and data sovereignty. Common European data spaces will ensure that more data becomes available for use in the economy and society, while keeping the companies and individuals who generate the data in control.
SEMIC provides support and expertise to different data spaces, for example for the Health and Tourism data spaces. It supports European Commission DGs to prepare their roadmap and consider existing solutions and standards for setting up the data spaces in their domains of expertise.
In addition, SEMIC is collaborating with various actors proposing services for building the data spaces to ensure the interoperability of the solutions offered.
To find out more about the data spaces and what SEMIC does for them, please see this page.
Catalogue of Services
We recommended that you start by visiting the Getting Started section, where you will find the relevant information structured in a step by step procedure.
The Catalogue of Services Action has helped various administrations and organisations in the past years by providing support to achieve their goals. Find an overview of all Technical pilots regarding Catalogue of Services on the dedicated page.
In general, we have identified several Case Studies listed below and described further in subsequent pages. If you are interested in one particular case study (listed or not), don't hesitate to contact us. The following situations are therefore presented to you :
- Case Study : Creating a catalogue of services
- Case Study : Improving the access to public services information through new technologies and higher data quality
- Case Study : Making catalogues interoperable
Access to Base Registries
We recommended that you start by visiting the Getting Started section, where you will find the relevant information structured in a step by step procedure.
The Guidelines on Access to Base Registries Interconnection provide recommendations and good practice examples collected from Member States and EU Institutions, and guide users on how to overcome the challenges Member States face, as well as how to simplify the work on base registries (BR).
Read more on the dedicated page on Joinup.
