Enrico Franconi

 

Happiness

Enrico Franconi

professor
KRDB Research Centre, founder and director (2002-2023)
CAIRNE (Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe), green member
European Masters Program in Computational Logic (EMCL), founder and director (2004-2019)
vice-rector for research (2005-2006)
Room NOI B1.5.42, NOI B1 engineering building 5th floor
Faculty of Engineering
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Via Bruno Buozzi 1, I-39100 Bozen-Bolzano BZ, Italy
  +39 0471-016-120




via della Meridiana 11, I-38122 Trento TN, Italy

Research statement

The research area I am working on is related to the application of database, artificial intelligence, and semantic technologies to concrete problems in information systems design and maintenance, in data integration, intelligent access, analysis and restructuring of big data. This subject area is quite vast, and involves both theoretical and applicative skills: the appropriate balance between these two aspects can provide a unique added value to the research area. My goal is to let practitioners to apply foundational results, and push theoreticians to understand the complex nature of the real issues. This can be achieved together with a research group which has a critical mass to include a variety of perspectives in the entire range from theory to practice. The interdisciplinary aspects of this research area are also crucial: together with the theory vs practice aspect, these are system aspects, methodological aspects, interaction and communication aspects, usability aspects, complexity aspects, correctness aspects, efficiency aspects, deployability aspects.
The KRDB Research Centre for Knowledge and Data at the Faculty of Engineering of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano was founded by me in 2002, and it aims at being an international centre of excellence in basic and applied research on KRDB technologies and at proposing to selected enterprises innovative ideas and technologies based on the research developed in the centre.

  Find more in my curriculum vitæ.

 

  • My interests are in:
    • Description Logics,
    • Knowledge Representation,
    • Foundations of Databases,
    • Knowledge Representation and Databases,
      • Ontologies and Conceptual Modelling,
      • Temporal Logics and Temporal Databases,
      • Multi-dimensional Data Models,
      • Information Access and Integration,
      • Peer-to-Peer Database Systems,
    • Computational Logics,
    • Artificial Intelligence,
    • Natural Language Semantics.

News

  Information on the research projects I am currently working on can be found in the FranconiSpace restricted access area.
 
  • Research quality evaluation (VQR) by the Italian Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research (ANVUR):
    • (2011-2014) Our Faculty of Computer Science is the fourth best in research Italian computer science department (INF/01).
      I got the mark high for all publications.
    • (2004-2010) Our Faculty of Computer Science is the second best in research Italian computer science department (INF/01).
      I got the mark 3 out of 3 for all publications.
  • The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019 (in cooperation with Elsevier):
    • The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the ninth world’s best small university.
    • The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the second best young Italian university.
    • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano ranks in the 126–150 range in the world.
    • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the 21st best Computer Science department in the world for citations.
    • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the fourth best Italian computer science department.
    • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the best for international outlook Italian computer science department.
    • The Faculty of Computer Science of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is the best for citations Italian computer science department.
      • Among the top 10 most cited scientists in the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 3 are from the KRDB centre.
      • Among the top 10 most cited scientists in our Faculty of Computer Science, 7 are from the KRDB centre.

Publications

  A list of my relevant publications is available on-line.
 

Teaching

  Information on the courses I am teaching can be found in the FranconiSpace restricted access area.
 

Research Activities

  • Principal investigator of the applied research project “Intelligent Reasoner for Fact Based Models” funded by the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) of the European Space Agency (ESA).
  • Principal investigator of the applied research project “Augmented Marketing” funded by a major software company.
  • Principal investigator of the applied research project “Legal Opinion Generator” funded by a startup.
  • Principal investigator of the applied research project “Smart Data Integration 4.0” funded by the a startup.
  • Principal investigator of the applied research project “Semantic modelling and semantic interoperability” funded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
  • Principal investigator of the CNR (Italian National Research Council) research project “Business Process Engineering” (BPE)
  • Principal Investigator in the European People Marie Curie action on a Network for Enabling Networked Knowledge (NET2).
  • Principal Investigator in the European large-scale integrating project (IP) on ONTOlogies meet business RULEs (ONTORULE).
  • Principal Investigator in the European IST Network of Excellence on Realizing the Semantic Web (KnowledgeWeb).
  • Principal Investigator in the European IST Network of Excellence on Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprises Applications and Software (InterOp).
  • Corresponding member of the European IST Network of Excellence on Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics (Rewerse).
  • Co-investigator of the European FET basic research project Thinking ONtologiES (TONES).
  • Principal Investigator of the European IST RTD project SEmantic Webs and AgentS in Integrated Economies (SeWAsIE).
  • Member of the European IST Network of Excellence on Computational Logic (CoLogNET).
  • Co-investigator of the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project in the Distributed Information Management (DIM) programme Source Integration and Revelation Facilities in Distributed Knowledge-based Query Processing (TAMBIS-II).
  • Principal Investigator of the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project Knowledge Representation meets Databases (KRDB).
  • Principal Investigator in the European ESPRIT Long Term Research project Foundations of Data Warehouse Quality (DWQ).
  • Head of the SemInt project, studying the foundations of semantic interoperability and data integration.
  • Head of the ORMiE project, studying and developing a reasoning plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio.
  • Head of the Quelo project, developing a tool for Semantics-driven Information Access.
  • Head of the iCOM project, developing a tool for Intelligent Conceptual Modelling.
  • Head of the coDBz project, studying and developing a Peer Database Management System.

Research Community Activities

  Information on the events I am currently organising can be found in the FranconiSpace restricted access area.
 

2023

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

  • In the program committee of the 2016 ACM Principles of Database Systems (PODS-2016) Conference, to be held in San Francisco, USA, on June 26th - July 1st, 2016.

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

  • In the program committee of the 10th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2011), held in Koblenz, Germany, 23-27 October 2011.
  • Invited to give a lectio magistralis on Description Logics at the AILA Summer School, held in Gargnano del Garda, Italy, 22-27 August 2011.
  • In the program committee of the 24th International Description Logics workshop (DL-2011), held in Barcelona, Spain, 13-16 July 2011.
  • In the program committee of the 19th Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems (SEBD-2011), held in Maratea, Italy, 26-29 June 2011.
  • In the program committee of the 2011 SIGMOD conference on databases (SIGMOD-2011), held in Athens, Greece, 12-16 June 2011.
  • Giving five lectures on Description Logics at the 3rd International ALP/GULP Spring School on Computational Logic (ISCL-2011), held in Bertinoro, Italy, 10-15 April 2011.

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000