Irish and Korean science institutes to team up on semantic web R&D

29 May 2012

The Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at NUI Galway has signed a collaborative research agreement with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) to progress research in the realm of semantic technologies.

The agreement looks set to spawn close collaborations between researchers at both institutes and is expected to lead to a number of funded projects.

Researchers at DERI and KISTI are already collaborating on a joint project in the area of semantic data integration and application.

DERI, which is based at NUI Galway, was set up in 2003, with support from Science Foundation Ireland. It now has more than 140 researchers who are focusing on the semantic web and networked knowledge, including linked data.

As for KISTI, the institute employs around 500 people and specialises in providing science technology and innovation services to promote national competitiveness in Korea. One of its major research activities is around advanced supercomputing.

R&D and the semantic web

DERI’s director Prof Stefan Decker said the agreement with KISTI will boost world-class R&D in the field of semantic technologies.

“We were honoured to have been approached by KISTI regarding this agreement and glad to accept, while looking forward to the start of specific research projects,” he said.

Sindice ‘web of data’ project

Among the first specific projects that are included in the agreement is one related to Sindice, a joint research project between DERI, Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Italy and the US-based OpenLink Software.

Sindice, which has its HQ at DERI, indexes web-scale amounts of markup data from websites.

“Sindice represents a unique opportunity for researchers and companies to look at and start using infrastructures and concepts related to web-scale semantic data processing,” said Dr Giovanni Tummarello, who heads up the data intensive infrastructure unit at DERI.

He said DERI is getting heightened interest on this topic from enterprise and academic partners like KISTI.

Tummarello said there would be “solid prospects” for Irish-based job creation related to these activities in the near future.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com