SEMIC specifications are made available in open and reusable formats and have been progressively developed taking into consideration needs and feedback of the entire semantic interoperability community.
Explore SEMIC specifications, download the latest releases or reach out to receive support!
Reusing our specifications? Let us know!
SEMIC is interested in knowing which SEMIC Core Vocabularies or Application Profiles your organisation or country are reusing and/or extending based on your national or domain-specific needs. In order to gauge usage and share it with the community SEMIC conducts this survey.
The specific purposes of this survey are to:
- Identify the usage volume of each SEMIC specification and plan future actions
- Create a public map of users of SEMIC specifications in order to boost synergies between different stakeholders.
- Promote best practices and usages of SEMIC assets visible on social media through different posts.
- Provide direct support to on-going actions.
In order to make this collaboration more efficiently we would kindly ask you to consider including in your response personal data such as your full name and organisation.
Principles and Guidelines
What is the Style Guide?The SEMIC Style Guide defines the principles to be applied to the SEMIC’s semantic data specifications. The objective is to foster the use of standards by offering guidelines and expert advice on semantic interoperability for public administrations. |
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e-Government Core Vocabularies (CoreVocs)
The e-Government Core Vocabularies are simplified, reusable and extensible data models that capture the fundamental characteristics of a data entity in a context-neutral fashion.
Core vocabularies are a cornerstone element of semantic interoperability across public administrations as they provide a standardised approach for describing key concepts such as locations, businesses, organisations and natural persons.
Explore SEMIC e-Government Core Vocabularies!
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page.
What is the Core Person Vocabulary?The Core Person Vocabulary is a simplified, reusable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of a person, e.g. the name, the gender, the date of birth, the location etc. What are the benefits of using the Core Person Vocabulary?This specification enables interoperability among registers and any other ICT based solutions exchanging and processing person-related information. Core Person Vocabulary key milestones
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Business Vocabulary?The Core Business Vocabulary is a simplified, reusable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of a legal entity, e.g. the legal name, the activity, address, etc. What are the benefits of using the Core Business Vocabulary?The Core Business Vocabulary includes a minimal number of classes and properties modelled to capture the typical details recorded by business registers. It facilitates information exchange between business registers despite differences in what they record and publish. Core Business Vocabulary key milestones
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Location Vocabulary?The Core Location Vocabulary is a simplified, reusable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of a location, represented as an address, a geographic name, or a geometry. What are the benefits of using the Core Location Vocabulary?The Location Core Vocabulary provides a minimum set of classes and properties for describing a location represented as an address, a geographic name, or a geometry. This specification enables interoperability among land registers and any other ICT based solution exchanging and processing location information. Core Location Vocabulary key milestones
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Criterion and Core Evidence Vocabulary?The Core Criterion and Core Evidence Vocabulary (CCCEV) supports the exchange of information between organisations that define criteria and organisations that respond to these criteria by means of evidences. What are the benefits of using the Core Criterion and Core Evidence Vocabulary?The Core Evidence and Core Criterion Vocabulary (CCCEV) addresses specific needs of businesses, public administrations and citizens across the European Union, including the following use cases:
CCCEV key milestones
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Public Organisation Vocabulary?The Core Public Organisation Vocabulary provides a common data model for describing public organisations in the European Union. What are the benefits of using the Core Public Organisation Vocabulary?The Core Public Organisation Vocabulary facilitates the process for institutions publishing data about public organisations. It can be enriched with sector- or country-specific information. The Core Public Organisation Vocabulary (CPOV) addresses specific needs of businesses, public administrations and citizens across the European Union, including the following use cases:
Core Public Organisation Vocabulary key milestones
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Public Event Vocabulary?The Core Public Event Vocabulary is a simplified, reusable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of a public event, e.g. the title, the date, the location, the organiser etc. What are the benefits of using the Core Public Event Vocabulary?The Core Public Event Vocabulary aspires to become a common data model for describing public events (conferences, summits, etc.) in the European Union. This specification enables interoperability among registers and any other ICT based solutions exchanging and processing information related to public events. Core Public Event Vocabulary key milestones
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Public Service Vocabulary?The Core Public Service Vocabulary is a simplified, reusable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of a service offered by public administration. What is the vision of the Core Public Service Vocabulary?The Core Public Service Vocabulary aims to offer a technology independent, generic representation of a service provided by public administration. The vocabulary will emerge as the common denominator of existing national, regional and local public service models, providing a lingua franca that will enable the seamless exchange of services and information across different e-Government systems. Which use cases the Core Public Service will help realise?The Core Public Service Vocabulary will help realise some very important use cases. If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page. | |||||
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What is the Core Assessment Vocabulary?
The Core Assessment Vocabulary represents and defines what an “Assessment” of “assets” is and how to perform the assessment based on “Criteria”. It is a domain-agnostic vocabulary, meaning that it can be used to assess any type of assets.
If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page.
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What is the Core Standards and Specifications Vocabulary?Τhe CSSV is the vocabulary used for the information exchange related to standards and specifications amongst software solutions, as well as, it is the key element for the development of the new release of the EIRA Library of Interoperability Specifications (ELIS). If you would like to know more about the Core Vocabularies in general, please visit this page.
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Application Profiles (AP)
Application Profiles are semantic constructs that indicate how metadata records should be designed and published in order to be interoperable.
SEMIC Application Profiles are nowadays widely used across Europe and represent a key element to foster data interoperability across public administrations and countries.
Explore SEMIC Application Profiles!
The DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe (DCAT-AP) is a specification based on the Data Catalogue Vocabulary (DCAT) developed by W3C. This application profile is a specification for metadata records to meet the specific application needs of data portals in Europe while providing semantic interoperability with other applications on the basis of reuse of established controlled vocabularies (e.g. EuroVoc) and mappings to existing metadata vocabularies (e.g. Dublin Core, SDMX, INSPIRE metadata, etc.). Also, DCAT-AP provides a common specification for describing public sector datasets in Europe to enable the exchange of descriptions of datasets among data portals. DCAT-AP allows:
DCAT-AP has an extension GeoDCAT-AP for describing geospatial datasets, dataset series and services. Another extension, StatDCAT-AP, provides specifications and tools that enhance interoperability between descriptions of statistical data sets within the statistical domain and between statistical data and open data portals. | |||||
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DCAT-AP for High-Value Datasets (HVD) is an annex for the DCAT Application Profile that is based on the Data Catalogue Vocabulary (DCAT) developed by W3C. DCAT-AP HVD offers users of DCAT-AP the possibility to adhere to the High-Value Datasets Implementing Regulation (HVD IR) with little additional effort. The HVD IR was adopted by the European Commission in December 2022 as part of their data strategy and the growing importance of data, in particular for datasets that have been identified as being of high value. One of the main benefits of adopting DCAT-AP for High-Value Datasets (HVD) is that it promotes a common usage of DCAT-AP, facilitating interoperability and data sharing among different data catalogues within the scope of HVD IR. In addition, it enables:
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Core Public Service Vocabulary Application Profile (CPSV-AP) is a reusable and extensible data specification used for harmonising the way public services are described in a machine-readable format. CPSV-AP captures fundamental characteristics of a public service, such as the name, description, competent public organisation, output, etc. Public administrations and service providers can therefore use this approach to describe their services and guarantee a level of cross-domain and cross-border interoperability at European, national and local level.
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| BRegDCAT-AP is dedicated to an application profile of DCAT-AP for base registries, aiming to provide a standard data model / specification for base registries access and interconnection. | |||||
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| The Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) is a vocabulary to describe reusable solutions, such as data models and specifications, reference data and open source software. The ADMS specification was originally drafted to describe semantic interoperability solutions (previously referred to as semantic assets). | |||||
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GeoDCAT-AP enables a cross-domain data portal search for datasets, as documented in the DCAT-AP specification. GeoDCAT-AP makes it easier to share descriptions of spatial datasets between spatial data portals and general data portals, and thus helps increase public and cross-sector access to such datasets.
The following datasets can be covered by GeoDCAT-AP:
- Datasets on the INSPIRE Geoportal. The INSPIRE Geoportal aggregates metadata for over 100k datasets across Europe, within the framework of the INSPIRE Directive.
Datasets on national SDIs. GeoDCAT-AP facilitates the integration of SDIs operated by EU Member States with any data catalogue able to consume DCAT-AP-compliant metadata. - General geospatial datasets.
The GeoDCAT specification is an extension of DCAT-AP.
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StatDCAT-AP delivers specifications and tools that enhance interoperability between descriptions of statistical data sets within the statistical domain and between statistical data and open data portals.
The StatDCAT specification is an extension of DCAT-AP.
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Other vocabularies and semantic specifications
In addition to the above-mentioned specifications, SEMIC provides support with additional specifications and plays a role in a number of other key initiatives related to semantic interoperability and cross-border data sharing.
What is ADMS?
The Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) is a vocabulary to describe interoperability assets making it possible for ICT developers to explore and search for interoperability assets.
What are the benefits of using the Asset Description Metadata Schema?
ADMS allows:
- solution providers, such as standardisation organisations and public administrations, to describe their solutions and share the standardised metadata across platforms, thereby increasing the discoverability of the solutions;
- content aggregators, such as Joinup, to aggregate such descriptions into a single point of access;
- ICT developers and researchers to more easily explore, find, identify, select and obtain interoperability solutions from a single point of access.
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The Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR) follows similar objectives as the Catalogue of Services Action: improving the exchange of public services descriptions between administrations across borders and improving the searchability and accessibility of public service information for the citizens and businesses.
To achieve this, the SDGR describes a list of procedures and information areas considered as particularly relevant in the crossborder exchange of public service information, such as requesting a proof of residence (procedure) or travelling within the Union (information area).
In this context, one key challenge for the Member States is to agree on common concepts for describing these procedures and information required. For example, what is meant by 'public organisation', 'competent authority', or 'life event'. Together with Member States and DG GROW, the Action has worked on a draft version of an SDG services model for describing the concepts relevant in the SDGR about public services.
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Access SEMIC GitHub repository
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