Semantic Data Management Maturity Survey Report

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The first results are in!

In September of 2025, Semantic Materials launched their Semantic Data Management Maturity Assessment Service. Part of this service includes a self-assessment survey that enables materials and manufacturing businesses to investigate strengths and weaknesses and alignment with business goals when it comes to implementing effective semantic data and knowledge management systems.

This initial report appraises the results received so far. The results show that current maturity levels are relatively low, with fragmented data management preventing efficient collaboration. And although staff are often aware of the need for more efficient data integration, a lack of standardised workflows may be hindering progress.

The survey provides insights into the key issues of knowledge management:

  • Data
  • Processes
  • People
  • Tools and technologies

To take the survey for yourself and learn more, the service is free to access here – Semantic Data Management Maturity Assessment Service.

Semantic Data Management Maturity Survey – Initial Results Analysis

was written byVikki Cantrill and Gerhard Goldbeck.

MaturityServiceResults_report_FINAL

A version of record of this report is available here.

Acknowledgement

This study has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 862136 (OntoTrans) and the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101137725 (BatCAT), and from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number 10091190].

 

 

Metadata for cataloguing datasets from materials science and related domains

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There are vast amounts of data available within materials science and only a fraction of these are published. Such data can come from research and development or manufacturing and span experimental data, simulations and may be from diverse laboratories. Indeed, much data is often lost or inaccessible because the metadata is often lacking and inconsistent, and experimental protocols can vary.

[We have written about the importance data catalogues in materials science previously over on our Semantic Materials site]

To help address these concerns, a considerable body of work has been undertaken by the RDA Working Group “Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains” supported by RDA TIGER and RDA Europe. This work has identified a set of strategies to improve the FAIR maturity of materials data, for example, regarding the need to have “Rich metadata… to allow discovery”.

A primary outcome from this work has been a report that, with a global perspective, reviews the state of the art, with a particular focus on the current two most used frameworks, DCAT and Schema.org, and the use of metadata for materials data cataloguing in general.

The report looks at how scientists organise and describe materials science datasets so they can be easily found, shared, and reused. It provides an overview of international efforts in the US, Europe, Japan, and Korea to create common standards for metadata and outlines some implementation cases. The report also highlights successes, gaps, and recommendations for harmonising metadata and how this could be achieved across countries and disciplines in the future.

Metadata for cataloguing datasets from materials science and related domains

was written by Otello Roscioni and Gerhard Goldbeck.

Metadata for cataloguing datasets from materials science and related domains-1

A version of record of this report is available here.

Acknowledgement

The work described here and the report has received funding from the RDA TIGER and RDA Europe and from European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon Research and Innovation programme, GA No. 101137725 (BatCAT), and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee, GA no 10091190 (BatCAT).

 

 

RDA 25th Plenary Meeting

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This morning, Gerhard participated online in a session of the RDA 25th Plenary Meeting, which formed part of International Data Week 2025 (13–16 October) that is running currently in Brisbane, Australia.

This event marked the final meeting of the Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains Working Group that Gerhard has been co-chairing. A number of topics were covered, including a short summary of work made possible by the generous funding from the RDA TIGER support scheme. The Working Group will now work to finalise its report that will include recommendations for field guides for increasing the FAIR maturity of data as well as semantic artefacts in materials science communities.

 

Acknowledgement

This work has received funding from European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon Research and Innovation programme, GA No. 101137725 (BatCAT), and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee, GA No. 10091190 (BatCAT).

 

Data Cataloguing for Materials Science

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We are pleased to let you know about a workshop organised by the Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains WG entitled: “Data Cataloguing for Materials Science and related domains”.

The meeting will take place, online, on Wednesday 24 September 2025, 11.30am–1.30pm UTC and will be supported by RDA TIGER and RDA Europe.

As mentioned on the meeting website, the workshop aims to identify a set of strategies to improve the FAIR maturity of materials data, for example, regarding indicator RDA-F2-01M: “Rich metadata is provided to allow discovery”.  There is a need to adopt high-level metadata/schemas such as DCAT and Schema.org, agree on Application Profile(s) based on domain requirements and establish standardised vocabularies to support harmonised applications.

The European Data Portal is a metadata catalogue based on the DCAT Application Profile. The meeting aims to identify what can be learnt from these and other initiatives, and what are the barriers to overcome?

The meeting will involve both short talks and discussions.

Confirmed speakers for the event include:

For full and up-to-date information about the event including joining instructions, visit the post on the working group’s website.

 

PSDI Materials Community Workshop

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This week (16 and 17 June 2025), Gerhard Goldbeck is attending a two-day workshop hosted by the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI).

The PSDI Materials Community Workshop is taking place in Manchester, UK, and covers a number of topics including:

  • Metadata and standards
  • Electronic research tools and automation
  • Workflows tools and reproducibility
  • Data-driven applications and machine learning

The PSDI is a UK initiative that works to connect and enhance data systems to make physical sciences research data more accessible, reproducible, and shareable by providing tools, services, and guidance.

Gerhard’s talk, entitled: Materials knowledge and data representation with a European ontology ecosystem discusses the path towards a widely agreed data-integration architecture for materials sciences, based on materials-specific metadata, conceptualisation and ontologies. The work is the result of many European projects under the umbrella of the European Materials Modelling Council‘s (EMMC), complemented by global efforts via a Research Data Alliance Working Group.

The presentation calls for the development of a materials-specific Application Profile of the DCAT standard, and the use of materials science ontologies for mapping data to federated endpoints. For the latter, the Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO) provides the basis for domain and application ontologies, such as battery manufacturing, electrochemistry and materials, characterisation and testing. As an example, the talk describes a battery manufacturing digital twin.

Gerhard’s presentation:

Knowledge-Organisation-PSDI-Workshop-Goldbeck

Or, you can view the presentation here.

Edit (08 October 2025)

All of the materials presented at this workshop are now available as a collection online.

Acknowledgements

The presentation acknowledges funding by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [GA 10091190], BatCAT.

EMMC2025 conference in Wien

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Today, the EMMC 2025 International Workshop — EMMC2025 — kicks off three days’ of events at the University of Vienna, Austria.

The workshop takes place every other year and this year the theme is “Accelerated Innovation and Sustainability by a Materials Modelling and Data Ecosystem”. The theme will be looked at from many angles including:

  • Advancements in modelling and integration with characterisation
  • Digitalisation and Interoperability including Materials Commons [2]
  • Software development, deployment and maintenance
  • Adoption in industrial ecosystems
  • Sustainability
  • Policy

Gerhard from GCL is attending, so please feel free to say hello and talk to Gerhard about the work that we do. He will be presenting a poster at the event, which also forms the basis for his flash talk on Wednesday 9 April.

The poster presents work that has been undertaken as part of the BatCAT project.

Gerhard’s presentation:

Close-up of mechanical gears and cogs. Designed by FreePik

MSE2024 conference Darmstadt

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Today, the International Materials Science and Engineering Congress — MSE 2024 — gets underway in Darmstadt, Germany. Organised by the Germany Society for Materials Science, this biennial event covers material science and engineering attracts over 1,200 participants.

Both Gerhard and Otello from GCL are taking part in this event. If you are at the conference, feel free to say hello and talk to Gerhard about the work that we do.

As part of the Digital Transformation session, Gerhard is giving a presentation entitled ‘Interoperable representations of characterisation workflows​‘, which gives an overview of how reference frameworks for characterisation workflows have been developed and applied. The presentation highlights work developed as part of the NanoMECommons project.

In addition, Otello is also giving a presentation as part of the same session. His talk entitled ‘Encompassing materials modelling for industry 4.0‘, focuses on materials modelling workflows using semantic technologies that was undertaken as part of the OpenModel project.

Gerhard also gets to chair an open session for NFDI-MatWerk that works to provide a comprehensive and accessible data infrastructure for all those working within the materials science and engineering community.

 

Gerhard’s presentation:

Goldbeck_MSE2024

Or, you can view the presentation here.

Otello’s presentation:

MSE2024_Roscioni

Or, you can view the presentation here.

 

New working group endorsed

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We are pleased to learn that the Research Data Alliance (RDA) has fully endorsed a new working group on the topic “Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains“. This endorsement follows after the proposal was open to community review and feedback earlier in the year.

The working group will formally kick off at the upcoming, fully virtual, 22nd Plenary Meeting of the RDA, which promises a very full and busy programme of events.

The group will offer two specific sessions so that every global region can easily participate. Session one will take place on Wednesday 15 May 2024, 07:00–08:30 UTC, and session two will take place on Thursday 23 May 2024, 14:00–15:30 UTC.

The draft agenda for the sessions is now available with opportunities for all participants to hear talks and provide input on a wide range of topics and interests.

Learn more about the plenary event and register now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OntoTrans M48 consortium meeting in Freiburg, Germany

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The OntoTrans consortium M48 meeting is underway in Freiburg, Germany in which GCL is a partner organisation. The meeting will run 19–20 March 2024.

Fraunhofer IWM, a partner organisation in the project, is our venue for this hybrid event with all project partners coming together to discuss the great progress made during the project and to finalise plans as the project enters its last months.

The OntoTrans project work to provide an ontology-based 0pen translation environment to benefit existing and emerging developments in materials research and manufacturing.

Front aspect of Fraunhofer IWM, Freiburg, Germany

Fraunhofer IWM, Freiburg, Germany.
Credit: Vikki Cantrill, GCL

The front aspect of Fraunhofer IWM, Freiburg, Germany

Fraunhofer IWM, Freiburg, Germany.
Credit: Vikki Cantrill, GCL

Image of people sat in a meeting at Fraunhofer IWM, Freiburg, Germany.

Meeting at Fraunhofer IWM, Freiburg, Germany.
Credit: Vikki Cantrill, GCL

Thank you to our project coordinators, Technische Universitaet Wien, and Fraunhofer IWM for organising the consortium meeting and discussion sessions. Photo credits to Vikki Cantrill.

Working Group consultation now open

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Goldbeck Consulting is involved in proposing a new working group within the Research Data Alliance (RDA). The proposed topic is “Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains”.

The proposal is currently under community review, and feedback and comments are encouraged. Detailed information about the group, including its objectives and work plan, is available here.

To read more and comment, visit the RDA’s case statement page. The review phase runs until 3 February 2024.