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Executive Summary
I wish to thank everyone that contributed to SIRIUS in 2021.
Your continued support and valued contributions have led to measurable results in a challenging environment. For the second consecutive year our community of researchers
and partners has worked through the COVID pandemic and demonstrated a high level of resilience. Once again thank you.
What is evident, is that our research programs and the interfaces between the research programs are strengthening. This is a result of participation in innovation projects, formal SIRIUS meetings between research programs and informal networking within our growing research community.
An example of this is the Ontology Engineering, Semantic Integration and Domain-Adapted Data Science research programs. During 2021 they have contributed to impactful innovation projects lead by our industrial partners. Of parti- cular importance are innovation projects that support Asset Information Modelling, Strong AI through hybrid approaches and the OBDA subsurface pilot. These innovation projects draw on expertise and methods from two or more research programs. Further strengthening the knowledge sharing and interactions between research programs.
It is encouraging to see our researchers participate in these partner lead innovation projects. From these activities we see considerable scope to expand our future research programs. We have also identified some limitations in existing method- ologies and technologies that are hindering the efficiency of digital solutions to solve industrial challenges. An example of this is the need to develop a graphical tool for building system orientated models. This will have a positive impact on the efficiency of asset information modelling.
Asset Information Modeling is still in its infancy, and we
see a need for significant research in the digital aspect of engineering. The interest in the domain adapted data science research program is also growing, as users and investors start to better understand the importance of strong AI. We now need to materialize the research opportunity by re-engaging with our partners, not only to re-align on the industrial challenges but also evaluate and prioritize opportunities that can form the core of our future research.
SIRIUS has strong international cooperation across various academic, research and industrial sectors. Even with the challenges of COVID we have continued to maintain and
Arild Waaler
leverage our international network. This impactful collabo- ration has led to several research innovations and is one of the major strengths of SIRIUS. An example of this is the SIRIUS OBDA subsurface pilot. This was a joint research project utilizing the Volve dataset that Equinor generously made available for research and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate fact pages. The project aims to reduce the time required for subsurface experts to access, integrate and clean data. The project was demonstrated at the SIRIUS General Assembly in November 2021.
I would also like to congratulate the 12 students that completed their master’s degrees and the three PhD candi- dates that successfully defended their thesis with SIRIUS
in 2021. Our research community are looking forward to welcoming new master’s students and PhD candidates into SIRIUS during 2022. We have seen over the previous years that the educational aspect from these programs is not only significant in terms of the individual’s growth, but also a considerable contribution to our research.
Hopefully, we are now through the worst of the COVID pandemic. We see many research opportunities and once again we can meet face to face. Together we can identify future challenges and define the future research required to address these challenges. I am looking forward to working with our community of researchers and partners in 2022 to deliver on our research plan and develop our future research program.
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