FOIS 2026 (International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems) is a ICORE C conference held in Vitoria, ES, Brazil on 2026-09-21. The paper submission deadline is 2026-03-16. Acceptance notifications are sent on 2026-05-27.
Definition and scope
The FOIS conference is a meeting point for all researchers with an interest in formal ontology. Formal ontology is the systematic study of the types of entities and relations making up the domains of interest represented in modern information systems. The conference encourages the submission of high-quality, previously unpublished results on both theoretical issues and practical advancements. FOIS 2026 will have distinct tracks for foundational issues, ontology applications and methods, and domain ontologies.
FOIS aims to be a nexus of interdisciplinary research and communication for researchers from various domains who engage with formal ontology. Common application areas include conceptual modeling, database design, knowledge engineering and management, software engineering, organizational modeling, artificial intelligence, robotics, computational linguistics, the life sciences, bioinformatics and scientific research in general, geographic information science, information retrieval, library and information science, as well as the Semantic Web.
FOIS is the flagship conference of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA), which is a non-profit organization promoting interdisciplinary research and international collaboration in formal ontology.
Topics of interest
Areas of interest to FOIS include, but are not limited to:
Foundational issues
Kinds of entities: particulars/universals, continuants/occurrents, abstracta/concreta, dependent entities/independent entities, natural objects/artifacts, events/processes
Formal relations: parthood, identity, connection, dependence, constitution, causality, subsumption, instantiation
Vagueness and granularity
Space, time, and change
Methodological issues
Ontology engineering
Ontology similarity, integration, alignment, matching and entity reconciliation
Ontology modularity, patterns, and contextuality
Ontology evaluation, quality, reuse, adaptation, and evolution
Ontology compliance with FAIR principles
Top-level vs. domain-specific ontologies
Constructional ontologies
Role of reference ontologies
Formal comparison among ontologies
Relationship between conceptual modeling and ontologies
Relationship with cognition, language, semantics, and context
Connections between knowledge graphs and ontologies
Methodological issues in the applications of ontologies
Social issues, such as trust or bias, with respect to ontologies
Applications
Technical applications of ontologies, such as
Semantic Web
Other areas of AI (Machine Learning, Explainable AI, Symbolic AI)
Qualitative modeling
Systems applications of ontologies, such as
Ontology-driven information systems engineering
Legacy reengineering or system modernization with ontologies
Ontology-based data access
Knowledge management
Information retrieval
Computational linguistics
Metadata management
Domain applications of ontologies, such as
Ontologies for business modeling
Ontologies for particular scientific disciplines (biology, chemistry, geography, physics, geoscience, cognitive sciences, linguistics, etc.)
Ontologies for engineering: shape, form and function, artifacts, manufacturing, design, architecture, etc.
Ontologies for the humanities: arts, cultural studies, history, literature, philosophy, etc.
Ontologies for the social sciences: economics, law, political science, anthropology, archeology, etc.
Ontologies for Open Science and dataset sharing
Domain-specific ontologies
Ontology of physical reality (matter, space, time, motion, etc.)
Ontology of biological reality (organisms, genes, proteins, cells, etc.)
Ontology of mental reality and agency (beliefs, intentions, emotions, perceptions, cognition, etc.)
Ontology of artifacts, functions, capacities and roles
Ontology of social reality (institutions, organizations, norms, social relationships, artistic expressions, etc.)
No comments yet.