The iCore initiative addresses two key issues in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), namely: (a) how to abstract the technological heterogeneity that derives from the vast amounts of heterogeneous objects, while enhancing context-awareness, reliability and energy-efficiency. (b) to consider the views of different users/stakeholders (owners of objects & communication means) for ensuring proper application provision, business integrity and, therefore, maximize exploitation opportunities.The iCore proposed solution is a cognitive framework comprising three levels of functionality, reusable for various and diverse applications. The levels under consideration are: i) virtual objects (VOs), ii) composite virtual objects (CVOs), and iii) functional blocks for representing the user/stakeholder perspectives.VOs are cognitive virtual representations of real-world objects (e.g., sensors, devices, etc.) that allow resolving the underlying technological heterogeneity. CVOs, on the other hand, use the services associated with VOs. In other words, CVOs are cognitive mash-ups of semantically interoperable VOs, delivering services in accordance with the user/stakeholder requirements. In each level there are scalable fabrics, offering mechanisms for the registration, look-up and discovery, and the composition of services. Through these features the cognitive framework constitutes an open networked architecture encompassing highly intelligent (i.e., adaptive, etc.) software.The iCore solution will be attributed with essential security protocols/functionality, which span all levels of the framework, and consider the ownership and privacy of data, as well as the actual access to objects.The validation of the proposed solution will be carried out by considering relevant Future Internet application areas enabled by the IoT. In particular, the use cases addressed by iCore are the following: ambient assisted living, smart office, smart transportation, and supply chain management.