Implementing the circular economy (CE) at scale requires not only products, components, and materials to circulate, but also information exchange across value chains. This implies a new level of collaboration between industry actors, also across industry segments. Semantic interoperability of data is today one of the biggest barriers towards data sharing in CE. The Onto-DESIDE project will provide the technical foundations for semantic interoperability in information flows that have the potential to transform CE digitalisation. The project leverages open standards for semantic data interoperability in establishing a shared vocabulary, i.e., a network of ontologies for data documentation, as well as a decentralised digital platform that enables collaboration in a secure and confidential manner, i.e. a platform for data sharing about materials, components and products, in circular value networks, and across industry domains. 

Several materials ontologies already exist in the materials science domain. However, these ontologies are often targeted at tasks specific to materials science, rather than collaboration in CE, and they do not cover other aspects important to CE, e.g. pro-ducts, processes, actors and capabilities etc. Our work will make use of materials ontologies, but will also connect them to a network of core CE modules, allowing to perform CE data sharing tasks, including to discover, analyse, and set up circular strategies for available materials, components and products. 

The project has so far analysed use cases in three separate industry sectors, i.e., textile, electronics, and construction industry, and developed a comprehensive understanding of cross-cutting concerns between these use cases, in terms of CE needs and concepts. Based on this, a set of requirements on the ontology network and data sharing platform has been developed, as well as a comprehensive survey of existing ontologies and standards that affect data sharing in this area. A first set of core ontology modules are also being developed, and will be aligned to appropriate materials ontologies. This lecture will present our initial results, and the validation of these with domain experts in our three sectorial use cases, as well as discuss open challenges in the project and beyond.