Phd position f/m multi-perspective data interlinking: combining standpoint logic and link keys for the digital twin of france

PhD Position F/M Multi-Perspective Data Interlinking: Combining Standpoint Logic and Link Keys for the Digital Twin of France

Le descriptif de l’offre ci-dessous est en Anglais

Type de contrat : CDD

Niveau de diplôme exigé : Bac + 5 ou équivalent

Fonction : Doctorant

Niveau d'expérience souhaité : Jeune diplômé

A propos du centre ou de la direction fonctionnelle

The Centre Inria de l’Université de Grenoble groups together almost 450 people in 26 research teams and 9 research support departments.

Staff is present on three campuses in Grenoble, in close collaboration with other research and higher education institutions (Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, CEA, INRAE, …), but also with key economic players in the area.

The Centre Inria de l’Université Grenoble Alpes is active in the fields of high-performance computing, verification and embedded systems, modeling of the environment at multiple levels, and data science and artificial intelligence. The center is a top-level scientific institute with an extensive network of international collaborations in Europe and the rest of the world.

Mission confiée

Digital twins of territories are becoming a central infrastructure for informed public decision-making. The JUNN programme (Jumeau Numérique National), launched in April 2026 and co-piloted by IGN, Cerema and Inria with support from France 2030, aims at providing French public administrations and local authorities with a shared, open technical platform for visualisation, simulation and multi-source data fusion at national scale [IGN et al., 2026]. A critical scientific challenge in constructing such a digital twin lies in the heterogeneous nature of the data and knowledge sources it must integrate: geospatial datasets, administrative records, real-time sensor streams, and — crucially — historical metadata.

Historical metadata, such as those gathered by the JUNN initiative under its historical dimension, document how territories have evolved over decades and centuries: changes in administrative boundaries, land use evolution, the transformation of infrastructure, and the shifting semantics of territorial concepts (what counts as a commune, a région, or a zone inondable has changed significantly over time). These metadata are produced and maintained by heterogeneous actors each with their own vocabulary, ontology and point of view on the territory. Integrating such sources demands not only syntactic alignment but semantic reconciliation across conflicting and evolving conceptualizations.

This thesis proposes to address this challenge by combining three complementary tools : standpoint logic, link keys, and ontology alignment.

Standpoint logic (SL) [Gómez Álvarez and Rudolph, 2021; Gómez Álvarez et al., 2023] is a multi-modal framework for representing heterogeneous knowledge held by different agents or institutions. Rather than forcing a unique ontological consensus, SL allows each data provider to maintain its own standpoint, a partial and acceptable interpretation of the domain, while establishing formal correspondences between standpoints.

Link keys [Atencia, David, Euzenat, 2021] extend the notion of database keys to the setting of RDF data interlinking across multiple knowledge graphs governed by distinct ontologies. A link key specifies which combinations of properties, identify the same real-world entity described in two different RDF graphs.

Ontology alignment is a set of correspondences between the entities (classes, properties, individuals) of two ontologies [Euzenat and Shvaiko, 2013]. It is a prerequisite for both standpoint articulation and link key applicability.

This thesis aims to develop a framework that combines standpoint logic with link keys, so that data interlinking can be made relative to the point of view of each data source: it will define standpoint link keys that infer point-of-view-dependent identity links, and characterise when such links are unequivocal (shared by all standpoints) versus contested.

The framework will be applied to the digital twin of France (JUNN), where it will support the integration of heterogeneous and/or historical territorial metadata.


References

[Atencia, David, Euzenat, 2021] Manuel Atencia, Jérôme David, Jérôme Euzenat, On the relation between keys and link keys for data interlinking, Semantic Web Journal 12:1–35, 2021. doi:10.3233/SW-200414

[Euzenat and Shvaiko, 2013] Jérôme Euzenat, Pavel Shvaiko, Ontology Matching, 2nd edition, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg (DE), 2013.

[Gómez Álvarez and Rudolph, 2021] Lucía Gómez Álvarez, Sebastian Rudolph, Standpoint Logic: Multi-Perspective Knowledge Representation, Frontiers in AI and Applications 344:3–17, 2021. doi:10.3233/FAIA210367

[Gómez Álvarez et al., 2023] Lucía Gómez Álvarez, Sebastian Rudolph, Hannes Strass, Tractable diversity: Scalable multiperspective ontology management via Standpoint EL, Proc. 32nd IJCAI, Macao (CN), pp3258–3267, 2023. arXiv:2302.13187

[IGN et al., 2026] IGN, Cerema, Inria, 1Spatial France, Lancement de JUNN — Jumeau Numérique National des Territoires, Programme France 2030, April 2026. JUNN web site:

Principales activités

Doctoral school: from the. The employer will be INRIA; the candidate will be subject to ZRR clearance.

Group: The work will be carried out in the (near Grenoble, France), a main computer science research lab, in a stimulating research environment.

Compétences

Qualification: Master or equivalent in computer science.

Researched skills:

1. Curiosity and openness.
2. Interaction with other researchers.
3. Autonomous researcher.
4. Interests in epistemology or the methodology of sciences.
5. Innovative.

Avantages

6. Subsidized meals
7. Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
8. Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
9. Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
10. Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
11. Social, cultural and sports events and activities
12. Access to vocational training
13. Social security coverage under condition

Rémunération

2300 euros gross salary /month