Editorial Introduction for Special Issue on Research Challenges and Practices in Conceptual Modeling–ER 2023

This special issue brings together the best papers from the ER 2023 conference, held in November 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal. Widely recognized as ER, the conference is the world’s leading forum for exploring the state of the art, emerging trends, and future challenges in conceptual modeling. The inaugural ER conference took place in 1979 in Los Angeles. Initially a biennial event, it became an annual conference in 1985 and has since been hosted in 20 countries across five continents. Over the decades, ER has fostered a globally connected, scientifically rigorous community of academics and practitioners committed to advancing the field.
The Data & Knowledge Engineering (DKE) journal, dedicated to the intersection of data and knowledge engineering, is a natural venue for this special issue. Conceptual modeling—ER’s core focus—lies at the heart of knowledge engineering, relying on data as a foundational concept for representing and managing knowledge through information systems. The ER conference has a long history of fruitful collaboration with the DKE journal, which motivated us, the ER 2023 Conference Chairs, to continue the tradition of organizing a post-conference special issue.
In an era characterized by rapid change, the proliferation of data, and the rise of AI, conceptual modeling is more critical than ever. It empowers our community to understand, describe, and analyze complex phenomena, enabling the design of effective software and information systems adaptable to any scale or level of detail, and to bridge the gap between research and real-world applications in industry and the public sector.