- FIN-CLARIAH Research Infrastructure
A new national research infrastructure initiative FIN-CLARIAH for...
8.12.2021 8:12 by eahyvone - WarMemoirSampo published on December 3, 2021
A new “Sampo” application, “WarMemoirSampo”...
8.12.2021 8:04 by eahyvone - Five new SeCo papers accepted for the ISWC 2021
The 20th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2021), the...
2.8.2021 6:53 by eahyvone
- Pieterjan Deckers, Eero Hyvönen, Michael Lewis, Eljas Oksanen, Heikki Rantala and Jouni Tuominen: ARCH-ON: A new ontological framework to describe archaeological objects for Digital Humanities research
- Eero Hyvönen, Annastiina Ahola, Petri Leskinen and Jouni Tuominen: Connecting Everything to Everything Else in a Cloud of Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graphs: SampoSampo Data Linking Service and Semantic Portal (Abstract)
- Petri Leskinen, Annastiina Ahola, Heikki Rantala, Jouni Tuominen and Eero Hyvönen: Consistency checking in a cloud of interlinked Cultural Heritage knowledge graphs – first results of using the SampoSampo data service and portal
- Petri Leskinen, Javier Ureña-Carrion, Jouni Tuominen, Mikko Kivelä, Eero Hyvönen: Knowledge Graphs and Data Services for Studying Historical Epistolary Data in Network Science on the Semantic Web
Sampo Model, Data Services, and Series of Semantic Portals
This page presents the ”Sampo” model, series of Linked Open Data services, and semantic portals (Hyvönen, 2022), based on six principles:
- Support collaborative data creation and publishing.
- Use a shared open ontology infrastructure.
- Support data analysis and knowledge discovery in addition to data exploration.
- Provide multiple perspectives to the same data.
- Standardize portal usage by a simple filter-analyze two-step cycle.
- Make clear distinction between the Linked Open Data service and the user interface (UI).
Sampo portal data services are provided by the Linked Data Finland platform. For the user interfaces, the Sampo-UI framework has been used since 2019.
The Sampo portals listed below in the table have had millions of end users on the Web in total, suggesting feasibility and sustainability of the approach that has evolved gradually since 2002. The first video on the left, produced by the Research Council of Finland (Suomen Akatemia), introduces our work on Sampo portals. The second video in the middle (in English) presents the vision and results of our research group in Semantic Web and Digital Humanities research from 2001 to 2026. The third video on the right (in Finnish with English slides) is the emeritus lecture of Prof. Eero Hyvönen. It presents our way towards a Web of Wisdom starting from the history of AI, Semantic Web, and SeCo research in Finland, beginning from organizing the First Finnish AI Symposium in 1984 to the Semantic Web Kick-of in Finland seminar in 2001, and to publication of the system "SampoSampo - Connecting Everything to Everything Else" in 2026.
The Sampo model with the underlying Linked Open Data infrastructure in Finland (Hyvönen, 2022) are explained in the keynote presentation at the DCMI 2021 conference below:
Paradigm Shift in Publishing Cultural Heritage Contents
The Sampo model, data services, and portals aim at making a paradigm change in publishing and using Cultural Heritage content on the Web (Hyvönen, 2020). The contents are not only published as Linked Data but also integrated seamlessly with intelligent tools for data analysis. In our vision, AI should not only help the user in solving research problems, but also in finding new ones using Creative AI methods. We also focus on white box Explainable AI, which is important in humanities research. In Douglas Adam’s novel “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the computer was asked “What is the meaning of life”. The answer “42” may be right, but a researcher in humanities would also like to know “why”.
Sampo Series
The Sampo series of data services and semantic portals is listed below.
Table: Published and forth-coming semantic portals that have been implemented using the Sampo model adn Sampo-UI or its predecessors. The list includes applications created by the SeCo group and external groups in other universities and organizations. (updated 2026-06-12)
| Portal project homepage | Public URL | Publication year | Domain | Unique users | Knowledge graph(s) triple count or size | Faceted search engine | User interface framework | Primary data owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internal portals | ||||||||
| 1. MuseumFinland | museosuomi.fi | 2004 | Museum collections | 39 000 | 210 986 | OntoViews | Apache Cocoon | National Museum of Finland |
| 2. CultureSampo | kulttuurisampo.fi | 2008 | GLAM collections | 107 000 | 11 400 000 | Custom | Tapestry | Over 20 Finnish Memory Organizations |
| 3. HealthFinland | - | 2008 | Health information | Unknown | 6 000 documents | Custom | Tapestry | Finnish institute for health and welfare |
| 4. TravelSampo | - | 2011 | Cultural travel | Unknown | 17 000 000 places | Custom | Drupal and jQuery | Several Finnish Memory Organizations |
| 5. WarSampo | sotasampo.fi/en | 2015 | Military history | over 1 000 000 | 14 322 426 | SPARQL Faceter | AngularJS | National Archives of Finland |
| 6. Norssi alumni on the Semantic Web | Norssit.fi | 2017 | Historical person registries | ? | 470 000 | SPARQL Faceter | AngularJS | Vanhat Norssit ry |
| 7. U. S. Congress Prosopographer | Demonstrator | 2017 | Historical person registries | ? | 828 000 | SPARQL Faceter | AngularJS | https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators |
| 8. BiographySampo | biografiasampo.fi | 2018 | Biographies | 52 000 | 5 373 496 | SPARQL Faceter | AngularJS | Finnish Literature Society |
| 9. NameSampo | nimisampo.fi/en | 2019 | Place names | 39 000 | 241 068 456 | Sampo-UI | Institute for the Languages of Finland | |
| 10. WarVictimSampo 1914–1922 | sotasurmat.narc.fi/en | 2019 | Military history | 29 000 | 9 815 265 | Sampo-UI | National Archives of Finland | |
| 11. Mapping Manuscript Migrations | mappingmanuscriptmigrations.org | 2020 | Pre-modern manuscripts | 7 800 | 22 472 633 | Sampo-UI | Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Bodleian Libraries, and Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes | |
| 12. AcademySampo | akatemiasampo.fi/en | 2021 | Finnish Academic People 1640–1899 | 8200 | 6 552 629 | Sampo-UI | University of Helsinki, Finland | |
| 13. FindSampo | findsampo.fi | 2021 | Archaeology | 3200 | 1 008 720 | Sampo-UI | Finnish Heritage Agency | |
| 14. WarMemoirSampo | sotamuistot.arkisto.fi | 2021 | Video memoirs of WW2 veterans | 2000 | TBA | Sampo-UI | Tammenlehvän Perinnesäätiö ry | |
| 15. LetterSampo projects | LetterSampo Demonstrator | 2022 | Early Modern Letters 1500-1800 (Republic of Letters) | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Huygens Institute, correspSearch, University of Oxford, archives in several countries | |
| 16. ParliamentSampo | parlamenttisampo.fi | 2023 | Parliamentary data | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Parliament of Finland | |
| 17. LawSampo | lakisampo.fi | 2023 | Legislation and case law | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Ministry of Justice, Finland | |
| 18. ConfermentSampo | promootiosampo.ldf.fi/en/ | 2023 | University traditions | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | University of Helsinki | |
| 19. BookSampo, using Sampo UI | analyysi.kirjasampo.fi/en/ | 2023 | Finnish fiction literature etc. | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Finnish public library consortium Kirjastot.fi | |
| 20. OperaSampo | oopperasampo.fi/en/ | 2023 | Musical performances | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | University of Arts | |
| 21. CoinSampo | coinsampo.ldf.fi | 2024 | Archeaology | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Fínnish Heritage Agency, British Museum (PAS), Fitzwilliam Museum | |
| 22. LetterSampo Finland | kirjesampo.fi/en/ | 2025 | Finnish Nineteenth-Century Letters | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | 16 Finnish Memory Organizations | |
| 23. SampoSampo | samposampo.fi/en/ | 2026 | Sampos and data services on the Web | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Lots od memory and other organizations | |
| 24. ArtSampo | TBA | TBA | Art collections | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | National Gallery of Finland | |
| 25. HistorySampo | TBA | TBA | Historical events | TBA | TBA | Sampo-UI | Agricola Network of Historians | |
| External portal projects using Sampo-UI, driven by researhers not in the SeCo research group | ||||||||
| 1. BookSampo | kirjasampo.fi | 2011 | Finnish fiction literature | 1.1 million annual users (2021) | 8 700 000 | None | Drupal | Finnish public library consortium |
| 2. Norske stadnamn | toponymi.spraksamlingane.no | 2019 | Place names | Unknown | 217 353 538 | Sampo-UI | Norwegian Language Collections | |
| 3. Staff portal | - | 2019 | Human resources | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Lingsoft Ltd. | |
| 4. KAVI RITVA portal | TBA | 2023 | National audiovisual archives, Finland | Unknown | 834 000 000 | Sampo-UI | Sofia Digital Ltd | |
| 5. Golem Lab, EU project | TBA | 2024 | Golem Lab - Graphs and Ontologies for Literary Evolution Models | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | University of Groningen, the Netherlands | |
| 6. PM-Sampo, VU University and Wereldmuseum, the Netherlands | TBA | 2025 | Pressing Matter project | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | VU University, Aalto University, and Wereldmuseum | |
| 7. DBLP-Sampo, University of Latvia | TBA | 2025 | TBA | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | DBLP database | |
| 8. SKCMDB Sampo, Reprex, Slovakia | TBA | 2025 | TBA | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Slovakian music data | |
| 9. FinnoUgric Sampo, EU Horizon Project, Germany | TBA | 2025 | TBA | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Open music data | |
| 10. Nobel Prize Sampo, University of Latvia | Nobel Prize Sampo | 2025 | TBA | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Nobel Foundation | |
| 11. League of Nations Sampo, Geneva Graduate Institute (GDI), Switzerland | League of Nations Sampo | 2026 | Minutes of Multilateralism project | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | UN Archives et al. | |
| 12. EHRI Knowledge Graph Sampo, Belgium and The Netherlands | EHRI Knowledge Graph Sampo | 2026 | European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Funded by Open Science Cluster's Action fort Research and Society (OSCARS) | |
| 13. BelHisFirm, University of Ghent, Belgium | BelHisFirm project | 2026 | BelHisFirm (open summer 2026) | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Two centuries of Belgian corporate history, Belgium and The Netherlands | |
| 14. NuMAD, University of Ghent, Belgium | NuMAD (open summer 2026) | 2026 | NuMAD Belgium, National library and University of Ghent | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Numismatic Roman coin collection | |
| 15. WenDang. WRITE Digital Archive, Italy | WRITE Collections | 2026 | University of Bologna | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | New Forms of Calligraphy in China: A Contemporary Culture Mirror | |
| 16. CHExRISH-sampo, Poland | CHExRISH, Cultural Heritage EXploration and Retrieval with Intelligent systes | 2026 | Jagiellonian University | Unknown | Unknown | Sampo-UI | Innterdisciplinary research on digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the area of cultural heritage | |
Related videos>
LetterSampo - Republic of Letters 1500-1800 on the Semantic Web
AcademySampo - Finnish Academic People 1640-1899
BiographySampo - Artificial Intelligence Reading Biographies for the Semantic Web
WarSampo - World War II on the Semantic Web
ParliamentSampo - Parliament of Finland on the Semantic Web
LawSampo - Finnish Legislation and Case Law on the Semantic Web
WarMemoirSampo - Video Interviews of veterans of the Second World War in Finland
Building a National Level Linked Open Data Infrastructure for Digital Humanities in Finland
The keynote presentation video of the DCMI 2021 confence below gives an overview of our work on developing a national Semantic Web infrastructure in Finland and its applications.
Contact
Professor Eero Hyvönen
Aalto University and University of Helsinki (HELDIG)
first.last [ at ] aalto.fi
Publications about the Sampo Model and Sampo Series as a Whole
Publications of each particular Sampo portal are available on their respective homepages listed in the above table.


