Maxime Lefrançois

Research

Knowledge engineering in support of the semantic interoperability of intelligent systems: devices, buildings, energy networks and data spaces.

Themes

My work answers one question: how can knowledge engineering support semantic interoperability between intelligent systems? The question has changed status. Under the EU Data Act, applicable since September 2025, semantic interoperability is a legal requirement, and the standardisation request of the European Commission names SAREF and DCAT-AP among the standards to use. What remains is to make it practical: for people who are not ontology experts, in systems with their own constraints, and with ontologies that must live for decades.

I treat the question as end-to-end engineering, from the model to its use, through the tools that produce it, the implementations that carry it and the standards that publish it. Results are established by measurement, by construction, and by adoption.

  • Describe: ontologies for intelligent systems. Reference ontologies (SAREF, SOSA/SSN, SEAS) and the patterns that circulate between them; project ontologies built ahead of them, such as CoSWoT and its Kinds of X and X of Interest pattern, and the Common Semantic Data Model of the OMEGA-X energy data space.
  • Produce: ontology engineering. What breaks when versioned ontologies evolve in networks, agile and tooled methodologies (ACIMOV, AIME, OLIVAW), and the SAREF development and publication framework, now part of a European standard.
  • Exchange: data and services on the Web. Lifting, lowering and validation between heterogeneous formats and RDF (SPARQL-Generate), custom datatypes (cdt:ucum), tools for developers, content negotiation, and the negotiation of data access contracts in data spaces.
  • Apply: the building as an intelligent system. The W3C Linked Building Data community (BOT, OPM), automated compliance checking (ACCORD), the digital twin of our building (Databat), and simulation for the Internet of Things, down to simulations on constrained devices.

Standardisation

I contribute to two European standards (EN) in ETSI TC DATA: the SAREF guidelines, and the data catalogue framework for data spaces.

  1. 2025–
    ETSI TC DATA, European standards: ETSI EN 303 760 (SAREF guidelines for IoT semantic interoperability, V1.1.1 in 2024, revision in progress) and ETSI EN 304 199 (Data catalogue implementation framework; guidelines for data catalogue framework, draft V1.0.0 in 2026).
  2. 2016–
    ETSI SAREF, in TC SmartM2M and, since 2025, TC DATA. SAREF Core V3.1.1 to V4.1.1, thirteen extensions V2.1.1, ETSI EN 303 760 (SAREF guidelines), TS 103 548 (SAREF4SYST), TS 103 673 (development framework), TR 103 781 (patterns). Main developer of the SAREF portal and of SAREF-Pipeline.
  3. 2016–2026
    OGC & W3C Spatial Data on the Web: co-editor of the Semantic Sensor Network ontology (2017) and of its 2023 edition, with an alignment module to SAREF.
  4. 2017–2019
    W3C Web of Things: co-editor of the Thing Description ontology.
  5. 2018–2021
    W3C Linked Building Data community group: co-chair (BOT, OPM).
  6. 2019–
    CEN-CENELEC-ETSI Smart Grids Coordination Group.
  7. 2022–
    AFNOR expert: PPBIM, mirror group of CEN TC 442/WG 9 Digital twins in the built environment; watch on CENELEC TC 205 Home and building electronic systems.

Projects

Current

  1. 2026–2031
    EDIS, Electro-mobility Data for Interdisciplinary Studies, PEPR MOBIDEC, France 2030 (ANR-24-PEMO-0002). Local contact, leader of tasks T4.3 and T6.2, PhD co-supervision.
  2. 2026
    SAREF-AI-SCALE, Advancing SAREF: scaling up adoption, fostering collaboration, and leveraging AI for enhanced standardisation, ETSI STF 702, 27 months, EU Single Market Programme. Contribution to the proposal; Mines Saint-Étienne is one of the STF contractors, with a share of the funding.
  3. 2021–
    Databat, the digital twin of the Mines Saint-Étienne building, in support of its energy sufficiency plan. Funded by Institut Henri Fayol. Co-lead with J. Villot.

Completed

  1. 2025
    StandICT.eu fellowship 07-968, Improving the ETSI SAREF publication framework and workflow. Sole beneficiary.
  2. 2023–2025
    EDF R&D research agreement on energy ontologies for the Horizon Europe OMEGA-X and ENERSHARE data spaces. Local scientific lead. Main result: the OMEGA-X Common Semantic Data Model.
  3. 2023–2025
    LoireConnecTID, France 2030 Territoires intelligents et durables. Lead of an internal work package.
  4. 2023–2024
    ETSI STF 653, SAREF Patterns. STF leader.
  5. 2023–2024
    ETSI STF 641, SAREF Digital Twins (EC/EFTA). Leader of task T1, rapporteur of two deliverables.
  6. 2022–2025
    ACCORD, Horizon Europe, Automated Compliance Checks for Construction, Renovation or Demolition Works (GA 101056973). Local scientific lead, leader of task T2.1.
  7. 2021–2024
    HyperAgents, ANR-SNF, hypermedia communities of people and autonomous agents.
  8. 2020–2024
    CoSWoT, ANR, Constrained Semantic Web of Things. Local scientific lead, leader of WP1.
  9. 2020–2024
    COST Action CA19134, Distributed Knowledge Graphs.
  10. 2020–2021
    ETSI STF 602, Cross-domain usability of IoT devices for humans and machines. Contribution to SAREF4LIFT.
  11. 2019–2020
  12. 2018–2020
    ETSI STF 566, SAREF extensions for automotive, eHealth/ageing well, wearables and water (EC/EFTA). Local scientific lead.
  13. 2018–2019
  14. 2016–2020
    Three research agreements with Engie R&D on data, ontologies and services, behavioural rules for distributed software agents, and goal-driven asset management. Negotiation, local scientific lead.
  15. 2014–2017
    OpenSensingCity, ANR, open sensor data in smart cities.
  16. 2014–2016
    ITEA SEAS, Smart Energy-Aware Systems, 35 partners in 7 countries. Author of the SEAS ontology.

In total, I negotiated about 1.3 M€ of contracts for Mines Saint-Étienne.

Supervision

PhD theses (co-supervision)

  1. 2026–
    A PhD on Semantic Web and agentic AI for open research data on electromobility (EDIS), with Antoine Zimmermann and Amel Fraisse.
  2. 2025–
    Khensa Daoudi: formal modelling of the negotiation of data access contracts in data spaces. With Antoine Zimmermann.
  3. 2022–2025
    Zehor Thilleli Hounas: a hybrid approach of semantic modelling and co-simulation for physical phenomena in smart buildings. CIFRE with EDF R&D, with Antoine Zimmermann and Bruno Traverson.
  4. 2020–2024
  5. 2017–2020

Post-doctoral researchers and research engineers

Amélie Gyrard (2016–2017), El Mehdi Khalfi (2018–2019), Omar Alqawasmeh (2020), Fatma-Zohra Hannou (CoSWoT), Thamer Mecharnia (ACCORD), Lina Nachabe (OMEGA-X and ENERSHARE, 2023–2025), David Gnabasik (ETSI STF 641 and 653, 2023–2024).

And about ten M1 and M2 research internships.

Scientific community

Chairs and editorial work

  1. 2025
    Co-editor of the post-proceedings of IC 2021–2023, Revue Ouverte d'Intelligence Artificielle 6(1-2).
  2. 2022
    Chair of the organising committee of the French AI Platform PFIA 2022 (480 participants), and co-organiser of its public programme Festiv'IA.
  3. 2021
    Chair of IC 2021, the French-speaking Knowledge Engineering conference.
  4. 2020
    Guest editor of the Semantic Web Journal special issue Semantics in the Edge: Sensors and Actuators in the Web of Linked Data and Things.
  5. 2019
    Proceedings co-chair of ISWC 2019; chair of RJCIA 2019; organiser of the Sensors and Actuators on the Web workshop at ISWC.
  6. 2018
    Workshops and tutorials chair of IoT 2018; organiser of the SSN 2018 workshop at ISWC and of SIS-IoT 2018.

Programme committees and reviewing

ISWC, ESWC, TheWebConf, ECAI, K-CAP, EKAW, SEMANTiCS, ODBASE, ETSI IoT Conference, IC, EGC, LDAC. Reviewer for the Semantic Web Journal, the Journal of Web Semantics, Energy and Buildings, Applied Ontology and Automation in Construction.

Best Senior PC member, ISWC 2020 Resource track. Best PC member, ISWC 2023 In-Use track.

Tutorials

PhD juries

  1. 2026
    Jan Martin Keil, Facilitating RDF graph accuracy and completeness through comparison. Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Reviewer.
  2. 2024
    Wafaa Mebrek, Stream processing and incremental reasoning over RDF streams. Institut Polytechnique de Paris. Examiner.
  3. 2023
    Elio Hbeich, Vérificateur règlementaire sémantique et multi-échelle. Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté. Examiner.
  4. 2021
    Alba Fernández-Izquierdo, Ontology verification based on lexico-syntactic patterns. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Vocal.
  5. 2019
    Andrea Cimmino, On discovering links using genetic programming. Universidad de Sevilla. Examiner.
  6. 2019
  7. 2019

Recruitment and evaluation

  • Selection committees for associate professor positions in computer science: Université Paris-Saclay, LISN (2024); Université Côte d'Azur, I3S (2025).
  • Project evaluation for the ANR generic call (2019, 2020) and the H2020 InterConnect open call (2022).
  • Member of the steering committee of the IC conference and of the Knowledge Engineering college of AFIA, since 2019.

Earlier work

My PhD thesis (2014) proposed a knowledge representation of Meaning-Text Theory lexical semantics, the Unit Graphs formalism. From 2014, my work in the SEAS project led to the SEAS ontology, SPARQL-Generate, Lindt custom datatypes and RDF Presentation negotiation.