diff --git a/robot-core/pom.xml b/robot-core/pom.xml
index b160fb27a..7f3de07c0 100644
--- a/robot-core/pom.xml
+++ b/robot-core/pom.xml
@@ -280,7 +280,7 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.geneontology</groupId>
       <artifactId>whelk-owlapi_${scala.version}</artifactId>
-      <version>1.1.3</version>
+      <version>1.2.1</version>
       <exclusions>
         <exclusion>
           <groupId>net.sourceforge.owlapi</groupId>