A **[[Foundational Ontology]]** is the highest-level and most generic tier of [[Ontology]], establishing the base framework upon which increasingly more specific [[Domain Ontologies]] (into a particular field or subject) and [[Application Ontologies]] (further into a particular use case or application) are built. ^about The range of established foundational ontologies include: > **BFO (Basic Formal Ontology)** - Centred around the duality between continuant (persistent over time) and occurrent (transient of time) concepts. Commonly used in medical and life science fields. > **DOLCE (Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering)** - Centred around concepts as they are perceived and represented in human thought and language. Commonly used in humanities and social sciences. > **SUMO (Suggested Upper Merged Ontology)** - Designed to be a highly generic framework for information processing systems that can be adapted to various domains or even across domains. It can be found in various fields, including AI applications due to this inherent versatility. > **GFO (General Formal Ontology)** - Models objects, processes, and space and time through time-intervals and time-boundaries. Often used in complicated, process-based applications where inherent changes of systems over time is the focus. [[Foundational Ontology]], and [[Ontology]] in general, shares conceptual and functional similarities to [[Enterprise Architecture]] and the concept of [[Metamodels]], though applied in different contexts themselves.