About us
Not only since industrialization has our social and economic progress depended on the mastery of materials. From the very beginning, materials science and engineering – MatWerk – have been key technologies of their time and continue to play a crucial role today. Thanks to their versatility, these two interdisciplinary fields offer a wealth of innovative solutions to address societal challenges in future-oriented areas such as energy, mobility, and the environment, thereby making a significant contribution to the sustainable use of our finite resources.
One major challenge lies in the numerous structural scales involved and, consequently, the diverse experimental and numerical methods that must be covered in MatWerk research. Comprehensive representation across all scales is essential, as the mechanical and functional properties of materials are determined by their microstructure and the changes it undergoes.
To address this challenge, NFDI-MatWerk aims to seamlessly integrate decentralized data and metadata, experimental and numerical workflows, and a materials ontology to maximize the interoperability and reproducibility of research data processing. The MatWerk consortium views the development of a federated research data infrastructure as a community-driven process. To this end, data usage profiles from Participant Projects (PPs) across various subdisciplines are analyzed to identify the most relevant scientific scenarios within MatWerk. The resulting Infrastructure Use Cases (IUCs) support the continuous development and evaluation of the infrastructure, while also enabling the validation of specific milestones in alignment with the needs of the research community.
Goals
-
Engagement and empowerment of all relevant stakeholders in materials science and engineering to actively contribute to the development of a user-oriented research data infrastructure.
-
Provision of a reliable, scalable, and federated infrastructure for the FAIR use of materials science research data.
-
Development of a framework for FAIR research workflows to facilitate data sharing and reuse.
-
Improvement of semantic interoperability through collaborative ontology development, supported by artificial intelligence (AI).
-
Establishment of standardized processes and quality criteria for research data.
-
Joint strategic advancement of digital transformation in materials science and engineering.
Task Areas
Community Interaction (TA-CI)
-
Promoting active participation and scientific exchange within the materials science and engineering research community
-
Providing education and training opportunities, including workshops, seasonal schools, and digital learning formats
-
Organizing conferences and community events, as well as establishing advisory and helpdesk services
(Meta)Data Interoperability (TA-MDI)
-
Providing a federated digital infrastructure for managing and linking research data and metadata
-
Developing services for data registration, storage, discovery, and sharing, for example through FAIR Digital Objects
-
Providing interoperable interfaces and technical services, including the technical infrastructure for the MSE Knowledge Graph
Workflows and Lab Environments (TA-WLE)
-
Developing and integrating digital laboratory environments, electronic lab notebooks, and workflow management systems for materials science and engineering
-
Standardizing, automating, and sharing experimental and simulation-based workflows, for example through a Node Store
-
Developing solutions for reproducible research processes, data quality, and AI-assisted analyses
Semantics and Artificial Intelligence (TA-SAI)
-
Developing and harmonizing materials ontologies and metadata schemas for various research applications
-
Further developing the MatWerk Ontology (MWO) and enabling the semantic integration of research data into the MSE Knowledge Graph
-
Using artificial intelligence and Large Language Models (LLMs) for automated data discovery, metadata enrichment, and knowledge extraction
Strategy Development (TA-SD)
-
Strategically guiding digital transformation through a community-driven process
-
Monitoring, analyzing, and assessing community needs, as well as managing developed solutions
-
Further developing governance structures, roll-out strategies, and national and international networks
Approach
At the heart of NFDI-MatWerk’s work are the Infrastructure Use Cases (IUCs), which serve as practice-oriented environments for development and testing. They connect the scientific and technical expertise of the Task Areas (TAs) with the specific requirements of the Participant Projects (PPs). Through continuous exchange and collaboration, solutions are developed for a shared research data infrastructure in materials science and engineering.
Prof. Dr. Christoph Eberl Fraunhofer IWM and University of Freiburg Speaker of the consortium
(Co-)applicant institutions and (co-)speakers:
- Prof. Dr. Martina Zimmermann, Fraunhofer-Institut für Werkstoff- und Strahltechnik und Technische Universität Dresden
- Dr. Tilmann Hickel und Prof. Dr. Norbert Huber, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung
- Dr. Jan Janssen, Max-Planck-Institut für Nachhaltige Materialien
- Prof. Dr. Ruth Schwaiger und Prof. Dr. Stefan Sandfeld, Forschungszentrum Jülich
- Prof. Dr. Antonio Krüger, Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz
- Prof. Dr. Harald Sack, Leibniz-Institut für Informationsinfrastruktur GmbH
- Prof. Dr. Achim Streit, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe
- Prof. Dr. Matthias S. Müller und Dr. Marius Politze, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
- Prof. Dr. Alexander Hartmaier, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
- Prof. Dr. Peter Felfer, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. Applicant institution
Participating Institutions
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde e. V. (DGM)
- Deutscher Verband für Materialforschung und -prüfung e. V. (DVM)
- Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (GAMM)
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon GmbH
- Hochschule Aalen
- Leibniz-Institut für Neue Materialien gGmbH (INM)
- Leibniz-Institut für Werkstofforientierte Technologien (IWT)
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft e. V., vertreten durch die Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF)
- Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg
- Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau
- Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden
- Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB)
- Technische Universität Berlin
- Technische Universität Clausthal
- Technische Universität Darmstadt
- Universität des Saarlandes
- Universität Freiburg
- Universität Kassel
- Universität Paderborn
- Universität Stuttgart
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. Applicant institution
(Co-)applicant institutions and (co-)speakers:
- Prof. Dr. Martina Zimmermann, Fraunhofer-Institut für Werkstoff- und Strahltechnik und Technische Universität Dresden
- Dr. Tilmann Hickel und Prof. Dr. Norbert Huber, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung
- Dr. Jan Janssen, Max-Planck-Institut für Nachhaltige Materialien
- Prof. Dr. Ruth Schwaiger und Prof. Dr. Stefan Sandfeld, Forschungszentrum Jülich
- Prof. Dr. Antonio Krüger, Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz
- Prof. Dr. Harald Sack, Leibniz-Institut für Informationsinfrastruktur GmbH
- Prof. Dr. Achim Streit, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe
- Prof. Dr. Matthias S. Müller und Dr. Marius Politze, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
- Prof. Dr. Alexander Hartmaier, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
- Prof. Dr. Peter Felfer, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Participating Institutions
- Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
- Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, BAM
- Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde e.V., DGM
- Deutscher Verband für Materialforschung und -prüfung e.V., DVM
- Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik e. V., GAMM
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, HZG
- Leibniz-Institut für Werkstofforientierte Technologien, IWT
- Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig und Berlin, PTB
- Ruhr-Universität Bochum
- Technische Universität Clausthal-Zellerfeld
- Technische Universität Darmstadt
- Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
- Universität Paderborn
- Universität Stuttgart