What is Ontology Instance (Individual)

The article is addressed to a wide range of specialists involved in data science including ontological data modeling and knowledge extracting in the various fields related to sustainable development (SD). A hierarchically structured ontological metamodel of SD is developed consisting of a conceptual layer of interconnected common, domain and application ontologies, and a physical layer of instance databases and documents. The SD common ontology is the top level of the conceptual layer and is associated with the next level of the SD domain ontologies in the economy, society, and nature. The third level is of the SD application ontologies and is illustrated by an example application ontology of firm sustainability. All ontologies of the SD metamodel have links to the relevant external ontologies and to specific instance databases. The proposed metamodel is a useful tool for SD knowledge structuring and classification, as well as a base for building machine learning models as a part of artificial intelligence.