Description
Contributors: Bernd Bayerlein (BAM), Marek Cebecauer (Heyrovsky Institute), Jesper Friis (SINTEF), Emanuele Ghedini (University of Bologna), Patrick Lambrix (Linköping University), Simon Stier (Fraunhofer ISC)
A new European initiative, MaterialsCommons (1), has launched in June 2026 to bring together shared digital resources, such as data and workflow tools, to form a connected European infrastructure that can be accessed through a single entry point. The work is structured into three technical domains: semantic interoperability, dataspace technologies, and workflows.
Here we outline the approach to establishing a semantic foundation with shared taxonomies, metadata standards, and ontologies accessible through common schemas. The aim is to create a MaterialsCommons Semantic Foundation consisting of a comprehensive, well-documented set of metadata schemas, taxonomies, ontologies, and semantic patterns. The latter (semantic patterns) are standardised, re-usable building blocks for common materials science concepts and workflows, such as the description of a process with input and output or of a measurement result as a quantity with value and units. While the semantic patterns are agnostic of a top level ontology, MaterialsCommons will provide implementations within both the EMMO (2) and PMDco (3) frameworks.
Furthermore, tools for mapping semantic assets to data sources and applications will be developed, e.g. actionable linked data using JDON-LD implementations will be created.
In order to support a standardised, widely applicable data cataloguing across different materials science domains, MaterialsCommons aims to develop Materials DCAT-AP, a DCAT application profile (4) for the field.
References:
(1) MaterialsCommons project: https://www.materialscommons.eu/
(2) Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO): https://github.com/emmo-repo/EMMO
(3) PMD Core Ontology: https://github.com/materialdigital/core-ontology
(4) How to create your DCAT-AP profile: https://semiceu.github.io/DCAT-AP-reuse-guidelines/
Acknowledgement: MaterialsCommons is co-funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe Grant Agreement No. 101293545