The Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe (SEMIC.EU) is an eGovernment service initiated by the European Commission and managed by the Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC) Unit. Being among the 'horizontal measures' of the IDABC, it is established as a permanent implementation of the principles stipulated in the 'European Interoperability Framework' (EIF). It is a service for the exchange of solutions to semantic interoperability, with a focus on demands of eGovernment in Europe. Through the establishment of a single point of sharing and collaboration the European Union wants to solve the problems of interoperability issues produced by closer European cooperation. The website and repository are based on open source software. Therefore the European Union's open source portal www.osor.eu provides SEMIC.EU technology for reuse.
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The IDABC programme mentions the efficient implementation of pan-European eGovernment services as an important purpose of SEMIC.EU. According to the website, the initial idea behind SEMIC.EU is “to make use of the knowledge already generated in other projects to the benefit of others”. As a network of eGovernment projects and communities SEMIC.EU is open for participation for all stakeholders in the field of public services and eGovernment. The projects involved provide and reuse solutions for seamless data interchange which preserves the original meaning of the data. Data methods are provided by stakeholders, harmonised and pooled. If this approach of harmonisation is more successful than standardisation is subject to evaluation.
SEMIC.EU is also described as an implementation-oriented preparatory measure of standardisation measures. Built upon its function as a facilitator of European harmonisation, the centre participates in international standardisation organisations. The provision of scientific as well as practical information in all matters related to semantic interoperability is another objective mentioned by the European Commission.
The website www.semic.eu is built around a repository of real-life solutions labelled as 'interoperability assets' (XML schemas, code lists, ontologies, taxonomies,classification schemes, etc.) which are provided by projects and organisations in the sector. For instance, French ministries or the Danish Telecom agency are providing developed solutions.
The assets are subject to a standardised and supervised clearing process to conform to high quality standards. This involves peer review and incremental enhancement of the assets. However, they remain available at any stage during the process making it possible to reuse them in different projects, contexts or domains at any time. Moreover each asset owns a forum thread. Comments on the clearing process of an asset may help to improve the quality standard.