On the Scientific Foundations of Enterprise Interoperability

In a rapidly evolving landscape, enterprises face unprecedented challenges and opportunities to become more innovative, competitive, and efficient. Despite the technological readiness and the abundance of solutions, the interoperability issues still afflict enterprises as they remain untackled at design time and without a systemic approach. To this end, the scientific foundations of enterprise interoperability shall structure the knowledge gained through pragmatic research in the domain over the last decades and more in order to avoid repeating research and missing opportunities for application. This chapter aims at outlining the objectives of the Enterprise Interoperability Science Base at its various evolution phases and documenting the key achievements made by the ENSEMBLE project. An overview of the actions to be implemented in this quest for scientific rigour is provided and the perspectives opened up through such an initiative are discussed.