Call for Workshop Proposals


* Submission deadline: April 24, 2017 *


The International Association for Ontology and its Applications, IAOA, invites proposals for workshops to participate in the 3rd Joint Ontology Workshops, JOWO 2017, to be held in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, on September 21-23, 2017.

This year’s JOWO so far includes ODLS (Ontologies and Data in Life Sciences), FOMI (Formal Ontology Meets Industry), SHAPES 4.0 (The Shape of Things), and the 3rd Image Schema Day. In addition to workshops, JOWO will be hosting meetings of IAOA Special Interest Groups and Technical Committees.

Previous JOWO editions were held at FOIS 2016, Annecy, France, and at IJCAI 2015, Buenos Aires, Argentina. As in earlier years, all contributions to JOWO workshops will be published in a joint CEUR proceedings volume, compare http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1517/ for 2015, http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1660/ for 2016.

Together, the JOWO workshops address a wide spectrum of topics related to ontology research, ranging from Cognitive Science to Knowledge Representation and Artificial Intelligence, Logic, Philosophy, and Linguistics. JOWO is especially suitable for interdisciplinary and innovative formats.

Researchers and practitioners interested in the theory, practice, development and/or application of ontologies are invited to submit workshop proposals for review.
We encourage several forms and length of workshops (the list is non-exhaustive):

- workshops that focus on an established research area, including continuations of workshops that were already held in the past;
- workshops that focus on emerging topics and applications, or on open research questions and challenges;
- workshops that aim to create cross-disciplinary research fostering exchange of ideas between groups otherwise mostly disconnected.

Important Dates


- April 24, 2017 - Proposal submission deadline
- May 2, 2017 - Acceptance notification
- May 10, 2017 - JOWO workshops and events announced
- Sept 21-23, 2017 - JOWO

For those who wish to coordinate their dates with the other workshops, we suggest the following dates:

- May 15, 2017 - Post the first call for participation
- July 17, 2017 - Submission of contributions to workshops (in the form of abstract, short or long papers depending on the organisers’ decision; this will be handled via a joint multi-track Easychair installation)
- Sept 1, 2017 - Workshop paper acceptance notification
- Sept 15, 2017 - Deadline for final camera ready copy to workshop organizer JOWO Workshops Requirements for Proposal Submission

The workshop proposals should be submitted electronically as a single PDF by email to the JOWO Steering Committee (jowo.steering@gmail.com).

Each proposal should contain the following information:

- A brief description of the scope and purpose of the workshop in relation to JOWO.

- A preliminary workshop format and a proposed schedule for organising the workshop, including desired length for the workshop (0.5-day, 1-day, 1.5-day or 2-day) or a time slot specification (e.g. 4-6pm daily). Please indicate if you intend to have any activities other than contributed talks (e.g., invited talks, panels, or posters).

- A list of related workshops held within the last few years, if any, and their relationship to the proposed workshop.

- The names, email addresses, and URLs of the organising committee members, pointing out the primary contact for the proposed workshop.

Selection process


The selection of workshops for the final program will be based on the scientific/technical interest in the topics in relation to the expected JOWO audience, the quality of the proposal, and the balance and distinctness of topics across all workshops. Similar or overlapping proposals may be suggested to be merged with the organisers’ consent.

For all accepted proposals, JOWO will be responsible for providing publicity for the workshop series as a whole, for providing logistic support (including the EasyChair installation) and a meeting place for the workshop.


Please send all inquiries to the JOWO Steering Committee (jowo.steering@gmail.com).

For the IAOA and JOWO:

Stefano Borgo | Oliver Kutz | Frank Loebe | Fabian Neuhaus