Last call for papers and presentations at the seventh annual full-day Integrated Food Ontology Workshop (IFOW)
Damion Dooley
Announcing the last call for papers and presentations at the seventh annual full-day Integrated Food Ontology Workshop (IFOW) within the Joint Ontology Workshop (JOWO) programme of the Formal Ontology in Information Systems Conference (FOIS), September 21-25, held in the beautiful city of Vitória.
NOTICE: Paper and presentation submission has been extended to June 17th !
See our webpage at https://foodon.org/ifow-2026-workshop/ for the latest information.
Analyses of food system challenges increasingly venture beyond the immediate domains of food production, nutrition, and human health, into a One Health paradigm where the interactions between humans, animals, and the environment all add dimensions of complexity. This year’s Integrated Food Ontology Workshop seeks a dialogue about the application of ontologies at the intersection of One Health domains. In particular, we seek to explore how food system sustainability is affected by both direct food loss and waste and by impacts inherent in current food system technologies and practices. These include, for example, PFAS chemical soil contamination, microplastics, pesticides, fertilizers and emerging microbial treatments and production ecosystems; the use of non-/biodegradable plastics in packaging; the effects of plant breeding on food preservation and resilience to drought, heat, shifting growing seasons and disease pressures; as well as animal health considerations concerning livestock disease dynamics and welfare standards.
Assuming that relevant fields can be ontologically represented, how can we encourage research across different communities to use ontologies to represent entities and their relationships in biology, epidemiology, chemistry, land use, agricultural practices, climate analysis, consumer behaviour and ethical requirements, in ways that foster interoperability and interconnectedness? This touches on philosophical and sociotechnical topics ranging from top-level/upper-level ontology harmonisation, to the ontological design patterns for describing processes both at the microscopic biological and macroscopic socioeconomic and environmental scale.
Topics of Interest (not exhaustive)
- Food system sustainability, which touches on many of the following topics:
- Agricultural production and contamination/remediation (PFAS, fertiliser, pesticide,...)
- Food processing, recipe representations and food science
- Nutrition, food safety, animal health and public health
- Food security, international trade, traceability and regulatory practices
- Food consumer behaviour - packaging, socioeconomics, …
- Food system loss and waste
- Improving food ontologies using content generated by LLMs; Using food ontologies to verify content generated by LLMs
- Top and upper-level ontology alignment (BFO, DOLCE, UFO, COB, CCO, BORO …) for food, sustainability, and health
Important Dates
Workshop paper submission deadline: 17 June 2026
Workshop paper author notification: 15 July 2026
Camera-ready submission: 31 July 2026
Workshop days: between 21-22 September 2026 (co-located with FOIS 2026)
Submission Types
We welcome original submissions of the following types:
- Papers:
- Full papers: not to exceed 13 pages (excluding references);
- Short papers: 5-9 pages (position papers, research-in-progress, practitioner reports);
- Paper abstracts should be no more than 300 words.
- Abstracts, for presentation only:
- 2-3 pages (not included in the proceedings).
With gratitude,
The IFOW Organizing Committee
Damion Dooley, Ontology Development Lead
Centre for Infectious Disease Genomics and One Health
Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU, Canada
Mobile 778-688-0049
Chuck Woolery
Another topic of interest to add. Increasing predictability of failed states. This impact of “interoperability and interconnectedness” was also missed by top experts in a mid-May -3 page story in the Washington Post -listing multiple problems for us -from the Strait of Hormuz blockade. But they did print my letter to the editor on Memorial Day...attached.
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Cw
WARNINGS: FINDING CASSANDRAS TO STOP CATASTROPHES By Richard A. Clarke and R.P. Eddy, 2017: https://cco.ndu.edu/PRISM-7-2/Article/1401978/warnings-finding-cassandras-to-stop-catastrophes/ The first 8 chapters detail the millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars lost to catastrophes,– natural and human engineered – because those in power failed to act on the advanced expert warnings. The last 8 chapters estimates the billions of lives and trillions of dollars humanity could save if we collectively prevented the other dire warnings - (some existential. #1 was AI. #2 was Pandemics). Most instructive is Chapter 9. It outlined three cognitive reasons why humans ignore such warnings. Since 2017 - 16 other mental factors have been identified –keeping our minds from changing. For this list, email ch...@igc.org
Consider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m7zmi6v2Ow a 4 min alternative to the Peace/War unresolvable evolution of ambigous words. Consider a clear, measurable and doable plan that already exists.
Chuck Woolery
Former Chair, United Nations Association Council of Organizations
Former Issues Director, Global Health Council.
Former Action Board, American Public Health Association.
Former Issues Director, World Federalist Association (now Citizens for Global Solutions)
Author of 1996 and 1997 Congressional testimony warnings regarding threats to US and global bio- security.
Rockville Rotary Peace Chair
District 7620 Rotary Action Group for Peace education/media officer.
D7620 Rotary Action Group for Mental Health Initiatives - good trouble maker.