In this paper, we examine the special requirements of lifecycle management for entities in the context of an entity management system for the semantic web. We study the requirements with respect to creating and modifying these entities, as well as to managing their evolution over time. Furthermore, we present the issues arising from the access control models needed for the management of a large, distributed repository of entities. Finally, we discuss the research directions that can offer solutions to the above problems, and give a brief overview of techniques and methods relevant to these solution directions.