Enterprise Interoperability Science Base Structure

A science base for enterprise interoperability was first proposed in 2006 as a mechanism to formalize knowledge being generated by researchers and applied by industry to facilitate collaboration between enterprises through mutual interoperability of their enterprise systems. Subsequently, the community of researchers and exploiters of Enterprise Interoperability research addressed this issue as a group, culminating in a project funded by the European Commission FP7 programme. In this chapter, the authors explore the structure for an Enterprise Interoperability Science Base defined in this project, based on analysis of its purposes, the knowledge already available from pragmatic research, and the lessons learned, both on interoperability and the theoretical structure of a science base. The resulting science base is now evolving from the body of knowledge used for its initial population to embrace new research results and issues. This chapter focuses on the structure devised for an Enterprise Interoperability Science Base capable of delivering benefit to a comprehensive range of stakeholders with research and industry interests.