Figure 1: Concepts addressed by the CE-RISE Glossary Task Force 

Brought to you by Joana Francisco Morgado and Patrick Wäger from Empa, A.M. Esfar-E-Alam Turzo from University of Oslo, and Evert Bouman from NILU. Presenting the work of the CE-RISE Glossary Task Force including Berend Mintjes from Leiden University, Stéphanie Muller from BRGM, and Valentin Wewer from TU Berlin. 

The multidisciplinary nature of the CE-RISE project brings along many opportunities for knowledge generation but also challenges related to the management and integration of knowledge from different domains and sources.   

As an example, “RE-strategy” is one of the key concepts that will be addressed in the CE-RISE information system. This concept might be straightforward for those who already worked in the Circular Economy domain but unknown for many others. What’s more, even being familiar with the concept doesn’t mean that everyone interprets it the same way: which of the different RE-strategy frameworks described in literature would it refer to? 

To leverage effective discussions and ensure fair contributions from all stakeholders to the CE-RISE concept, it is crucial to bring everyone to the same level of knowledge and understanding early in the project. A key solution towards overcoming this semantic barrier is to create controlled vocabularies with standardised words and well-defined meaning that are shared across the consortium and beyond. In CE-RISE we initiated this process via the creation of CE-RISE Glossary Task Force.  

CE-RISE Glossary Task Force

The Glossary Task Force comprises a collaborative cross-work package (WP) effort towards building the CE-RISE shared vocabulary. The first iteration of this activity lasted seven weeks during which partners tried thoroughly discussing the semantics of some of the key concepts and propose comprehensive and unambiguous definitions for it. Figure 1 represents the concepts discussed during the task force and illustrates how the conversations evolved. Partners started with a list of three concepts and ended the first task force with comprehensive definitions for 15 concepts.  

Concepts Addressed by the CE-RISE Glossary Task Force

Figure 1 presents some of the Glossary Task Force results comprising a list of terms and corresponding definitions combined with comprehensive graphical representations.  

Going back to the “RE-Strategy” concept, CE-RISE  considers only six out of the  ten ”Rs”. The complete results of the Task Force work will be made available soon. 

Illustration of Some of the Results from the Glossary Task Force 

Enhanced communication  

The CE-RISE consortium already experienced the benefits of establishing a shared vocabulary during the last  meeting in Athens ,where RE-indicators for recyclability and reparability were addressed, but having a “common language’ is equally beneficial at regular meetings organised by different WPs.  

According to feedback from CE-RISE project partners the shared vocabulary: 

• helped avoiding repeated, endless debates around semantics and advancing towards more specific discussions about the methodologies to be employed in CE-RISE); 
• provided much needed clarity in a project where many participants come from very different backgrounds together to develop new concepts in Circular Economy; 
•  is an essential step in achieving circular strategy objectives in CE-RISE project by defining appropriate indicators to measure and monitor circularity of products. 

Implications in the digital infrastructure and need for standardisation. 

It is not surprising that these challenges are reflected in the way we describe data. Most of the data generated today follows distinct structures and schemata which are too often understood solely by the individuals generating the data and/or maintaining the database. This, combined with a large variety of formats and the fact that data is mostly stored across isolated sources (partially offline) leads to the current siloed digital infrastructure. Furthermore, it impedes full access to available data and the ability of building new knowledge and powering well-informed data-driven decision making. 

What’s more, the development of shared controlled vocabularies and ideally standards play a pivotal role in breaking silos and enabling semantic interoperability across platforms. The adoption of a common terminology enables the description of data in a shared, comprehensive, and explicit manner that ensures consistent data interpretation across systems. It is important to note that data should be consistently interpreted not only by machines but also by humans, implying that standards should be both human and machine readable. In this context, following  FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data principles, semantic web technologies – namely ontologies – have gained momentum across diverse fields. 

How Will the Glossary Task Force Support the CE-RISE Information System?

The work conducted in the CE-RISE Glossary Task Force aims at contributing to the ongoing standardisation efforts and sets the first steps towards building a common vocabulary for the CE-RISE information system that facilitates the interpretation and integration of heterogeneous data from diverse systems, actors, and stakeholders.  

Moreover, a semantic data modelling approach (e.g.: via ontologies) will be equally implemented to enable seamless integration based on the Digital Product Passport (DPP) of products and materials. The goal is to render reusable products searchable and construct a knowledge graph with a robust semantic ontology. 

How Will the Glossary Task Force Support the CE-RISE Information System?

The work conducted in the CE-RISE Glossary Task Force aims at contributing to the ongoing standardisation efforts and sets the first steps towards building a common vocabulary for the CE-RISE information system that facilitates the interpretation and integration of heterogeneous data from diverse systems, actors, and stakeholders.  

Moreover, a semantic data modelling approach (e.g.: via ontologies) will be equally implemented to enable seamless integration based on the Digital Product Passport (DPP) of products and materials. The goal is to render reusable products searchable and construct a knowledge graph with a robust semantic ontology.