KNowledge On Web Scale

The Knowledge on Web scale (KNoWS) office of IDLab - Ghent University.

Work with us

vacancies
Vacancies

Become our colleague and have an impact on the future of the Web! Find out more about available career opportunities and how to apply.

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project partner
Project

Are you interested in working on a project together with us? Find out more about the possibilities and how to get in touch.

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phd
PhD

Are you passionate about the same topics as we are and want to do your PhD with us? Find out more about the possibilities and how to apply.

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master thesis
Research stay

Are you a PhD student who wants to do a research stay with us? Find out more about the possibilities and how to apply.

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master thesis
Master thesis

Are you a student and want to do your master thesis with us? Find out more about the possibilities and how to apply.

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sponsorships
Sponsorships

Are you looking for a sponsorship for a course or conference? Do you identify as a women or Black person? Find out more about our sponsorships and how to apply.

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Current projects

ERA-KG
ERA-KG

Bilateral collaboration with the European Agency for Railways (ERA) to create and evolve a semantic interoperability layer that integrates the different base registries maintained by the agency.

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FRACTION
FRACTION

Today, centralized stores govern the storage and processing of Big Data. Due to regulation (e.g. GDPR) and increasing awareness of people about data sensitivity, a paradigm shift towards decentralization is imminent. This allows people to control their own personal data, by guarding all public and private data they or others create about them in a vault, and selectively granting access to people and organizations of their choice. Future uses of Big Data are thus bound to shift from a small number of large datasets to a large number of small datasets. As such, the fundamental assumptions on which the current approaches are built to deal with the characteristics of Big Data (Volume, Variety & Velocity) are no longer valid, i.e. volume cannot be tackled by centralising data in a single location, high velocity data streams cannot be sent to a centralised data center and the variety problem cannot be resolved by imposing a single data format. FRACTION supports the shift to a decentralized approach by leveraging Semantic Web technologies. It will investigate 1. algorithms that autonomously distribute the analytics across the decentralized network, while hiding its complexity to the user, 2. decentralized and user-friendly data access control policies, and 3. methods to exploit the heterogeneity of the decentralized network to improve scalability and performance of the analytics.

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MareGraph
MareGraph

MareGraph will build a data architecture for cost-efficient, flexible and sustainable data sharing for a Marine Knowledge Graph. In this project we collaborate with the Flemish Marine Institute (VLIZ), Digital Flanders and the Italian National Research Council (CNR).

Onto-DESIDE
Onto-DESIDE

The Onto-DESIDE (Ontology-based Decentralized Sharing of Industry Data in the European Circular Economy) will address the main challenges facing industry that prevent the efficient sharing of data and making it understandable and usable by humans and machines. The project targets four core project outcomes: - A shared vocabulary in the form of network of ontologies. - An open circularity platform, i.e. a secure and privacy-preserving decentralised data sharing platform using RML, Solid, Comunica, Verifiable Credential, and blockchain technologies. - Methods to find, analyse and assess the new circular value chain configurations. - Validation– demonstrating and quantifying the potential for increased retainment of value.

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OSLO
OSLO

The Flemish government wants to optimize its services and make the exchange of information smoother. But government services to citizens and entrepreneurs are supported by specialized applications from various software suppliers. That is why there is a need for an unambiguous standard: OSLO (Open Standards for Linking Organizations).

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RE-ENNOVATE
RE-ENNOVATE

RE-ENNOVATE is an ambitious 3-year project to make home renovation smarter, cheaper, faster and better and re-innovate the process of energetic renovation. As the need for more energy efficient homes is only amplified by the current energy crisis, new tools are necessary for homer owners and professionals to understand which renovation measures work for them. With novel data-driven methods, RE-ENNOVATE will make the benefits and cost of renovations more transparent to individuals, propose personalized renovation packages, and increase automation, while continuously improving all steps by a closed feedback loop. The research consortium includes WTCB, imec, Ghent University, Adaptive, Mosard, Scone, Leuven2030 and Vandereyt. The project runs in cooperation with Flux50 and VLAIO.

Serendipity Engine
Serendipity Engine

We increasingly rely on algorithmically generated recommendations to navigate in both online and offline contexts: listening to music on streaming platforms, reading news online, or following recommendations about activities and events in your favorite city. These recommender systems help us dealing with the abundance of available information, but at the same time raise questions about their impact on individual citizens and society. The Serendipity Engine project sets out to address these challenges and support societal stakeholders in designing recommender systems to foster serendipity in public contexts.

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SHARCS
SHARCS

Data pods, for example based on the emerging Solid technology, securely store personal data and allow n-to-m data sharing between individuals and apps/third parties. However, there are still quite some research challenges remaining. These relate to which data are shared and with whom they are shared, but also to the validity of the data that are shared. The SHARCS project aims to solve a number of these challenges for the case of secure and selective sharing of accredited personal data.

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Solid4Media
Solid4Media

With the active involvement of a representative group of Flemish media users, this living lab investigates the potential of Solid technology in a real media context. The goal is to migrate users' media profiles to a pod infrastructure and provide existing and new media services from there. The project proposal focuses on three important use cases identified by Flemish media stakeholders: (i) personal recommendations, (ii) trust through transparency and consent control, and (iii) targeted advertisements. By practically realizing the Solid infrastructure, the technical feasibility and scalability of a future-oriented decentralized media infrastructure is investigated and the concrete added value this can offer for existing and new media services is examined, both from a business and end-user perspective.

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Sytadel
Sytadel

Sytadel will provide technical data spaces architecture and design principles for actors who want to participate in the logistics data spaces in the future, together with open-source components and/or open software implementation guidelines.

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TRIPLE
TRIPLE

The TRIPLE project, a collaborative effort between the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, the University of Ghent and the IOCB Prague, aims to boost the (re)usability of existing knowledge graph resources and improve software tools for RDF data access, documentation and data model visualization. In addition, TRIPLE will increase interoperability between existing public SPARQL endpoints and private data stored in Solid Pods, thus creating an ecosystem of research data that can be seamlessly integrated through efficient and expressive federated SPARQL queries.

Vlaamse Smart Data Space
Vlaamse Smart Data Space

The Flemish Smart Data Space (in Dutch: Vlaamse Smart Data Space) ensures the sustainable publication and consultation of sensor data and their context information. As a decentralized solution, the Flemish Smart Data Space uses a joint ecosystem with clear rules, allowing us to share, publish and reuse data in a smart way.

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