Second call for papers and presentations for the IFOW 2026 Integrated Food Ontology Workshop at JOWO/FOIS Vitória, Brazil Sept 21-25

[Giorgio Ubbiali]

[apologies for cross-posting]

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Announcing the second 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.

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: 3 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