Goals for concept representation in the GALEN project.

The GALEN project aims to develop language independent concept representation systems as the foundations for the next generation of multilingual coding systems. Traditional coding schemes have reached the limits of what can be maintained and managed, and a shift to formal compositional systems is now essential. GALEN is developing one such scheme and an associated concept model, together with criteria for their evaluation. It should provide the flexibility required to cope with the diversity amongst medical applications, whilst ensuring the coherence necessary for integration and re-use of terminologies.