Ontology

BFO

Basic Formal Ontology

The upper level ontology upon which OBO Foundry ontologies are built.

data identity and mappingdata retrievaldataplantfairmatfoundational ontologiesnfdi-matwerknfdi4catnfdi4chem
D54

FAIR 43/48

Version 2019-08-26

Evaluated 26 Oct 2026

How scores work

Source & access

Homepageifomis.org Repositorygithub.com DownloadCanonical file / PURL Browse in OLSEMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup ServiceBrowse in BioPortalNCBO BioPortalBrowse in OBO FoundryOBO Foundry registry

Portals & registries

SourceIDVersionClassesPropertiesIndividualsLoaded
OLS (EMBL-EBI)bfo2019-08-263522025 Oct 2026
TIB Terminology Servicebfo2019-08-263524021 Aug 2023
OBO Dashboardbfo2019-08-2636——9 Dec 2025

Ontology IRI http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/bfo.owl
Version IRI http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/bfo/2019-08-26/bfo.owl

Languages en

Imports from (2)
IAO XML

Reused by (180)
AGRO AISM AMPHX APOLLO_SV ARO BCO BMONT BSPO BTO CHEBI CHMO CIDO CL CLAO CLO CLYH COB COLAO CTENO CTO CVDO DDANAT DDPHENO DIDEO DPO DRON ECAO ECO ECOCORE EMAPA ENVO EXMO ExO FAO FBbt FBcv FBdv FLOPO FOODON FOVT FYPO GALLONT GECKO GENEPIO GENO GEOGEO GO GSSO HANCESTRO HAO HP HsapDv HSO HTN IAO ICEO ICO IDO INO LABO LEPAO MAXO MCO MCRO MF MFOEM MFOMD MmusDv MONDO MOP MP MPIO MRO MS NBO NCRO NGBO OAE OARCS OBA OBCS OBI OBIB OCCO OGG OGMS OHD OHMI OHPI OMIT OMP OMRSE ONS ONTONEO OOSTT OPL OPMI ORNASEQ OVAE PATO PBPKO PCL PCO PDRO PdumDv PHIPO PLANA PLANP PO PORO PPO PR PROCO PSDO PSO RBO RO RXNO SEPIO SLSO STATO T4FS TO TXPO UBERON UPHENO VO WBbt WBls WBPhenotype XAO XCO XPO ZECO ZFA ZFS ZP ADDICTO ADO AFO AfPO BCGO BCIO CAO CARO CDAO CDNO CHEMINF CHIRO COHO CRO DUO ECTO EFO EMRO ENM EPIO EUPATH FBbi FIDEO GMHO HCAO IDOCOVID19 MFMO MIAPA MICRO MSIO NMR OGSF OMIABIS ONE PAIN PECO PREFER PRIDE REHABO SWO TFO UPA VBO

Logical consistency
consistent · 0 unsatisfiable
OWL 2 DL
no
ROBOT report
2 errors · 53 warnings · 19 info
OBO principles
FP01FP02FP03FP04FP05FP06FP07FP08FP09FP11FP12FP16FP20
Axioms
530 · 35.09% entities reused

OOPS!: 0 critical · 1 important · 2 minor pitfall types

Also registered as
aberowl: BFO agroportal: BFO biodivportal: BFO bioportal: BFO fairsharing: FAIRsharing.wcpd6f obofoundry: bfo ols: bfo ontobee: BFO tib.ts: bfo wikidata.entity: Q4866972

Automated evaluation

F Findable FAIR9/12
  • Persistent identifier (F1)purl.obolibrary.org+4
  • Indexed in services (F4)6: OLS, TIB, BioPortal, OBO Foundry, Bioregistry, FAIRsharing+5
  • Citable reference (F2)no reference publication listed0
A Accessible FAIR12/12
  • Homepage reachableHTTP 200+3
  • Artefact retrievable over HTTP(S) (A1)download HTTP 200+6
  • Metadata persists in a registry (A2)OBO Foundry, Bioregistry+3
I Interoperable FAIR10/12
  • Formal machine-readable format (I1)OWL, OBO+5
  • Semantic-web IRIs (I2)OWL, OBO+3
  • References other vocabularies (I3)imports 2: iao, xml+2
R Reusable FAIR12/12
  • Clear license (R1.1)CC BY 4.0+5
  • Release provenance (R1.2)2019-08-26 (version IRI in the artefact)+4
  • Community standards (R1.3)OBO principles: 11/13 checks pass+3
Q Ontology consistency & quality11/20
  • Logical consistencyconsistent, 0 unsatisfiable classes (OBO Dashboard)+10
  • OWL 2 DL profileoutside OWL 2 DL0
  • Upper-ontology alignmentno BFO/COB/DOLCE import found0
  • Standard relations (RO)does not import the Relation Ontology0
  • ROBOT report: no errors2 errors0
  • ROBOT report: warning density53 warnings / 36 classes = 1.470
  • Pitfall scan: no critical pitfalls0 critical, 1 important, 2 minor pitfall types (OOPS! (local Docker))+1
M Maintenance0/16
  • Recency2024-01-30 → 32.9 months (older / unknown)0
  • Release cadence (12 months)0 releases (GitHub releases)0
U Community adoption10/16
  • Documented adopting projects1 project+2
  • Reused by other ontologies180: agro, aism, amphx, apollo_sv, aro, bco…+4
  • Community signalmax(stars 348 → 4, citations 0 → 0)+4
P Penalties (inactivity & inconsistency)-10
  • Time since last activity2.7 years → 4 × max(0, 2.7 − 1)-7
  • Inactive statusnot archived, legacy or inactive0
  • Consistencyconsistent, no unsatisfiable classes0
  • ROBOT report errors2 errors-3

FAIR subtotal 43/48 · earned 64/100 − 10 inactivity = 54/100 → grade D

Community adoption 1

  • obofoundry.org

    BFO is imported by multiple OBO ontologies to standardize upper level structure

    Source: OBO Foundry registry

Know a project that uses BFO? Suggest it.

History & changes 1 run

History starts with the first archived run; changes appear after the next evaluation.

RunScoreFAIRVersion evaluatedTermsSnapshot
26 Oct 2026, 03:31 UTC54 D432019-08-2635JSON

Provenance

Every fact on this page was fetched automatically. Each row shows where it came from and when. If a source fails, the last good value is kept and marked “carried forward”.

FactSourceRetrieved
Homepage link check (HTTP 200)ifomis.org26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
Repository link check (HTTP 200)github.com26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
Download link check (HTTP 200)purl.obolibrary.org26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
Artefact header (version IRI)raw.githubusercontent.com26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
Git refs (commit 857be9f, latest tag v2019-08-26)github.com26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
GitHub repository statisticsapi.github.com26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
OLS classes, imports, version & releaseebi.ac.uk26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
OBO Foundry status, license & usagesobofoundry.org26 Oct 2026, 02:37 UTC
TIB Terminology Service metricsservice.tib.eu26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
Bioregistry mappings, dependencies & reusebioregistry.io26 Oct 2026, 02:40 UTC
OBO Dashboard (checked 9 Dec 2025)dashboard.obofoundry.org26 Oct 2026, 02:37 UTC
OOPS! pitfall scanoops.linkeddata.es25 Oct 2026, 21:41 UTC

Run 2026-10-26T02-37-38Z · evaluator v2.0.0 · rubric v3.4 · entry.json · run snapshot