Wikipedia

Draft:National Center for Ontological Research

  • Comment: Has NCOR been written about in detail by people unaffiliated with the organization? Also needs to be rewritten from scratch without the use of LLMs. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 22:39, 8 June 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: Ncorwiki is user edited so cannot be used as a source. Theroadislong (talk) 17:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment: I see no secondary sourcing establishing notability. Drmies (talk) 22:22, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment: If this draft is accepted, NCOR should be converted from a redirect to a disambiguation page. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

National Center for Ontological Research
AbbreviationNCOR
Formation2005
Type501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization
HeadquartersBuffalo, New York, United States
FieldsApplied ontology, ontology engineering, semantic interoperability
Key people
Barry Smith, John Beverley
Websitencor-network.org

The National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR) is an applied ontology research organization based in Buffalo, New York. It was established in 2005 and has been associated with work in applied ontology, ontology evaluation, ontology quality assurance, ontology training, biomedical ontology, and semantic technologies for defense and intelligence applications.[1][2]

History

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NCOR held its inaugural conference at the University at Buffalo on October 27, 2005. The event was sponsored by NCOR, the university's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, and the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences. It was followed by a Workshop on Bio-Ontologies sponsored by NCOR and Stanford University's National Center for Biomedical Ontology.[3]

The inaugural conference included presentations by participants from the U.S. National Security Agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Stanford Medical Informatics, the European Centre for Ontological Research, MITRE, TopQuadrant, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. University at Buffalo reporting described NCOR as working with partner institutions drawn from academia, government, and industry.[4]

A 2006 review article in Briefings in Bioinformatics identified NCOR as one of several ontology research centers created in the United States and Europe during a period of growing institutional support for biomedical and applied ontology.[1]

Activities

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Ontology evaluation and quality assurance

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A 2006 NIST publication, Prospects and Possibilities for Ontology Evaluation: The View from NCOR, described NCOR's perspective on ontology evaluation. NCOR's October 2005 inauguration led to the identification of goals and the formation of committees, including an Ontology Evaluation Committee charged with developing plans for the evaluation of ontologies.[5]

A 2010 IOS Press volume on ontologies and semantic technologies for intelligence described NCOR as having been established to coordinate and enhance ontological research activities, with special attention to tools and measures for ontology quality assurance, training, dissemination of good practices, and strategies for federations of principles-based ontologies.[2]

Biomedical ontology

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NCOR has been associated with biomedical ontology through its early collaboration with Stanford's National Center for Biomedical Ontology and through work connected to the Open Biomedical Ontologies ecosystem. The 2010 IOS Press volume described the Gene Ontology as a founding partner of NCOR and stated that NCOR played a role in the creation of the OBO Foundry, a federation of biomedical ontologies designed to support biomedical research.[2]

Defense and intelligence applications

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NCOR has been linked to ontology and semantic technology work in defense and intelligence contexts. NCOR was contracted in 2008 by the U.S. Army Net-Centric Data Strategy Center of Excellence to create ontologies for biometrics and command-and-control domains, in 2009 NCOR worked with MITRE to develop UCore-SL, a semantic layer for UCore 2.0,[2] and in 2025 partnered with Crownpoint Technologies to construct ontologies for circular biomanufacturing process design.[6]

The Ontology for the Intelligence Community (OIC) conference series was a forum for applying ontologies to problems in intelligence analysis, organized in 2006 and 2007 by NCOR.[2] OIC was later replaced by the Semantic Technology for Intelligence, Defense, and Security (STIDS) conference series and NCOR organized and hosted in event in 2024 and 2026.[7][8]

In 2024, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and the Intelligence Community Chief Data Officer Council identified Basic Formal Ontology and the Common Core Ontologies as baseline standards for formal ontology work across the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.[9][10] Barry Smith and John Beverley were involved in work connected to BFO, CCO, and their adoption as ontology standards for defense and intelligence applications.[11]

A 2024 APA Blog Substack article identified Smith and Beverley as co-directors of NCOR and described them as leading what it called the academic arm of the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community Ontology Working Group.[12]

Broader community initiatives

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NCOR was one of the sponsors of the 2006 Upper Ontology Summit, held at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. The resulting communiqué was published in the journal Applied Ontology and described the summit as a convening of custodians of upper ontologies, ontology technology participants, and other interested parties.[13]

NCOR has helped organize ontology tutorials and training workshops, worked with the Ontolog Forum, NIST, and the International Association for Ontology and its Applications on the annual Ontology Summit, and participated in the InterOntology conference series with the Japanese Center for Ontological Research.[2]

International chapters

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NCOR has a Brazilian sister organization: NCOR-BR. University at Buffalo reported in 2021 that NCOR-BR is a nonprofit association and the Brazilian chapter of NCOR, formed by researchers, professionals, and students working in applied ontology.[14] NCOR-BR describes itself as a nonprofit association concerned with the application of ontological principles to problems in information systems, knowledge organization, technology, education, and professional practice.[15]

Organization

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The National Center for Ontological Research Inc. is a Buffalo, New York-based 501(c)(3) charitable organization.[16]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 Bodenreider, Olivier; Stevens, Robert (September 2006). "Bio-ontologies: current trends and future directions". Briefings in Bioinformatics. 7 (3): 256–274. doi:10.1093/bib/bbl027.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Janssen, Terry; Obrst, Leo; Ceusters, Werner (2010). "Introduction: Ontologies, semantic technologies, and intelligence". Ontologies and Semantic Technologies for Intelligence. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications. Vol. 213. IOS Press. pp. 1–12. doi:10.3233/978-1-60750-581-5-1. ISBN 9781607505808.
  3. ↑ Donovan, Patricia (October 21, 2005). "UB Ontological Research Center to Hold Workshop". University at Buffalo News Center.
  4. ↑ Donovan, Patricia (October 27, 2005). "Ontology conference to be held today". UB Reporter.
  5. ↑ Obrst, Leo; Hughes, L.; Ray, Steven R. (April 1, 2006). Prospects and Possibilities for Ontology Evaluation: The View from NCOR. Proceedings of the 4th International EON Workshop – Evaluation of Ontologies for the Web. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
  6. ↑ Nikolov, Ana; Drobnjakovic, Milos; Kulvatunyou, Boonserm; Granite, Stephen; Beverley, John (September 1, 2025). An Ontological Perspective on the Circular Biomanufacturing Process Design. APMS 2025 Conference "Cyber-Physical-Human Production Systems: Human-AI Collaboration and Beyond". Kamakura, Japan: National Institute of Standards and Technology. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  7. ↑ "Semantic Technology for Intelligence, Defense, and Security (STIDS 2024)". KaDSci. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  8. ↑ "Semantic Technology for Intelligence, Defense, and Security Conference (STIDS) 2026". National Center for Ontological Research. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  9. ↑ Wade, Lori; Martell, Craig H. (January 25, 2024). Baseline Standards for Formal Ontology within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community (PDF) (Report). Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and Intelligence Community Chief Data Officer Council.
  10. ↑ Weinberg, Justin (March 7, 2024). "Department of Defense Adopts a Philosopher's Applied Ontology". Daily Nous.
  11. ↑ Gambini, Bert (March 4, 2024). "Federal agencies adopt resource developed by UB ontologists". University at Buffalo News Center.
  12. ↑ Smith, Barry; Beverley, John (2024). "Commercializing Ontology; Lucrative Jobs for Philosophers". A.P.A. Substack Newsletter: Public Philosophy Digest.
  13. ↑ Obrst, Leo; Cassidy, Patrick; Ray, Steve; Smith, Barry; Soergel, Dagobert; West, Matthew; Yim, Peter (2006). "The 2006 Upper Ontology Summit Joint Communiqué". Applied Ontology. 1 (2): 203–211. doi:10.3233/APO-2006-018.
  14. ↑ "NCOR-Brazil 2021". University at Buffalo Department of Philosophy. February 19, 2021.
  15. ↑ "NCOR-BR – Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Ontologias". NCOR-BR. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  16. ↑ "National Center for Ontological Research Inc". Charity Navigator. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
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