Adv Eng Mater - 2024 - Bayerlein - Concepts...
This article describes advancements in the ongoing digital transformation inmaterials science and engineering. It is driven by domain-specific successes and thedevelopment of specialized digital data spaces. There is an evident and increasingneed for standardization across various subdomains to support science dataexchange across entities. The MaterialDigital Initiative, funded by the GermanFederal Ministry of Education and Research, takes on a key role in this context,fostering collaborative efforts to establish a unified materials data space. Theimplementation of digital workflows and Semantic Web technologies, such asontologies and knowledge graphs, facilitates the semantic integration of hetero-geneous data and tools at multiple scales. Central to this effort is the prototyping of aknowledge graph that employs application ontologies tailored to specific datadomains, thereby enhancing semantic interoperability. The collaborative approach ofthe Initiative’s community provides significant support infrastructure for under-standing and implementing standardized data structures, enhancing the efficiency ofdata-driven processes in materials development and discovery. Insights andmethodologies developed via the MaterialDigital Initiative emphasize the transfor-mative potential of ontology-based approaches in materials science, paving the waytoward simplified integration into a unified, consolidated data space of high value.