Within the framework of the Sixth I-ESA International Conference, supported by the INTEROP VLab (International Virtual Laboratory on Enterprise Interoperability, http://www.interop-vlab.eu), three workshops and a Doctoral Symposium have been organized in order to strengthen some key topics related to interoperability for enterprise applications and software. The workshops were selected to complement the conference topics, leaving more time to researchers for brainstorming and then coming up, at the end of the workshops, with new research directions for the future.

The goal of the workshop “Standards – a Foundation for Interoperability” is to increase awareness and understanding of interoperability standards as a fundamental need. The workshop “Use of MDI/SOA Concepts in Industry” promotes the application of MDI (Model-Driven Interoperability) combined with SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) and the associated technology (BPM, Enterprise Modeling, ontology, mediation, model transformation, etc.) in industry. The workshop on “Dynamic Management across Interoperating Enterprises” investigates the need for enhancements to current business management systems and processes to address the needs of global trading across enterprises utilizing the new service-oriented Internet. Finally, the Doctoral Symposium has given the opportunity for students involved in the preparation of their PhDs in this emerging area to present and discuss their research issues and ideas with senior researchers.