Ontological Modeling of Design Innovation Ecosystems: A Formal Knowledge Representation Framework from a Philosophical Cross-Disciplinary Innovation Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64504/big.d.v3i3.778Keywords:
Design Innovation, Innovation Ecosystem, Formal Ontology, Knowledge Representation, Relation Ontology, Systems Theory, Cross-Disciplinary IntegrationAbstract
The increasing complexity of innovation demands a paradigm shift from isolated endeavors to interconnected ecosystems. However, the conceptual and relational underpinnings of Design Innovation Ecosystems (DIEs) remain largely informal and fragmented, hindering systematic analysis and knowledge integration. This paper introduces the Design Innovation Relation Ontology (DIRO), a formal framework grounded in Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and Relation Ontology principles. DIRO provides machine-readable and logically coherent representations of DIEs through 18 core classes and 24 formal relations. The framework is implemented in Web Ontology Language (OWL 2 DL) and validated against 20 cross-disciplinary design innovation projects spanning diverse domains. Validation results demonstrate high performance: average competency coverage of 92.8% (23.2/25 questions answered), ontology coverage of 89.8%, and query response time of 0.68 seconds. The DIRO framework successfully captures complex dependencies and facilitates automated reasoning about innovation pathways and knowledge flows. This work bridges the gap between philosophical underpinnings of design and computational requirements of modern knowledge management, providing a foundational contribution to the nascent field of design innovation science.
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