NCOR Mission

The National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR) is dedicated to advancing the field of ontology through research, education, and implementation.

Our mission is to develop high-quality, interoperable ontologies that can be used across domains and cultures to facilitate clear communication and data integration.

The National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR) was established in Buffalo by Barry Smith in 2005 with the goal of advancing the quality of ontological research and development and of establishing tools and measures for ontology evaluation and quality assurance. NCOR draws on the expertise of ontologists associated with the University at Buffalo and of their collaborators in scientific, commercial and government institutions throughout the world.

NCOR serves as a vehicle to coordinate, enhance, publicize, and seek funding for ontological research activities. It provides coordination, infrastructure, and independent review to organizations employing ontologies in fields such as defense and intelligence, management, healthcare and biomedical sciences.

It provides researchers working in ontology-related areas with specialized support in seeking external funding and in assembling collaborative, interdisciplinary teams both nationally and internationally. It provides consultant services for ontology projects especially in the defense and security fields and in health care and biomedical informatics. NCOR also engages in training and outreach endeavors that are designed to broaden the range of institutions and individuals accepting the goals of high quality ontology in both theory and practice.

NCOR has been involved in various initiatives, including the development of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), which has been recognized as an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). BFO is used in efforts ranging from genomics research to digital manufacturing and has also been adopted by the U.S. Department of Defense as a standard for ontology development.

Through these efforts, NCOR has established itself as a leading center in the field of applied ontology, contributing to the development of logically coherent data classification systems, collaboration among researchers and practitioners in various domains, and the development of ontologies to build trustworthy AI systems.