Event announcement: Advanced Battery Manufacturing Workshop

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Advanced Battery Manufacturing Workshop

A collaborative meeting of the BatCAT, BATTwin and AM4BAT projects

16–17 April 2026

 Homerton College, Cambridge, UK

Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8PH

This hybrid event will bring together leading experts, researchers, and stakeholders to explore cutting-edge advancements in battery manufacturing technology.

The workshop is being co-organised by the BatCAT, BATTwin and AM4BAT projects to create a unique platform to showcase the latest breakthroughs in data systems and digital twins, solid-state lithium-ion batteries, advanced battery manufacturing and innovative cell assembly techniques.

Attendees will have the opportunity to:

  • gain in-depth insights into the progress, objectives, and results of the partner projects,
  • join expert-led technical sessions that will highlight the emerging trends in battery manufacturing and digital twins,
  • connect with key researchers, engineers, and manufacturers from the battery community,
  • participate in discussions and networking opportunities on the challenges and opportunities for sustainable, high-performance battery cell production.

The event is free to attend and, to make the most of the two-day programme, attendance in-person is highly recommended. All delegates need to register. The full programme, including technical sessions, panels, and networking opportunities, is available here.

Our confirmed speakers are:

Fadi Al Manchot (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)

Dimitris Argyropoulos  and Dionysis Zisis (Sunlight)

Ana Bankovic Cassidy (Cambridge Nanomaterials Technology)

Fabrizio Bernini (Bi-rex)

Erwan Le Bourhi (N-ABLE)

Elisa Buccafusco (Politecnico di Torino)

Qiong Cai (University of Surrey)

Marcello Colledani (Politecnico di Milano)

Matthew Evans (University of Cambridge and Datalab Industries)

Mona Faraji Niri and Dariusz Ceglarek (University of Warwick)

Timm Fitschen (IndiScale)

Karol Frohlich (Centre for Advanced Materials Application SAS)

David Gonzalez (Universidad Loyola)

Martin Thomas Horsch (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)

Gergely Horváth (HUN-REN Computer Science and Control Research Institute)

Bastien Hualpa de Schuyter (Leitat Technological Center)

Masoud Jabbari (University of Leeds)

Anmol Jnawali (Photocentric)

David Keating (Echion Technologies)

Amirhossein Khezri (LISPEN)

Sudeepika Liyanapathiranage (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)

Donia Marzougui (Upcell Alliance)

Alessia Melechì (Comau)

Robert Mitchell (Centre for Process Innovation)

Andreas Rauh (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg)

Aleksandra Roganović (ElevenEs)

Rachel Smith (University of Sheffield)

Wenxian (Hetty) Sun and Mao (Maggie) Xu (University of Greenwich)

Artur Tron (Austrian Institute of Technology)

 

UPDATE: Registration to attend in person has now closed. Online registration is still open.

You can register to attend here.

The venue

Homerton College, Cambridge is located just a short distance from the city’s main train station and the city centre. Click here for directions and information about accommodation, and here for an annotated map of the college grounds. When arriving at the college it is best to enter via the Events Reception entrance on Harrison Drive. Alternatively, participants can enter via the Porters’ Lodge on Hills Road and then make their way across the college to reach the Events Reception.

Acknowledgement

This event has received funding and support from The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency under grant agreement no. 101137954 (BATTwin) and from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number 10118186 (BATTwin)], the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement nos. 101069756 (AM4BAT), and 101137725 (BatCAT), and from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number 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:

EMMC logo

Easy-MODA: Simplify and standardise simulations

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Within materials science, there is often the need to combine lots of data and models to facilitate innovation and standardise approaches. One method is to use Easy-MODA, a free web tool that helps researchers document and register the complex modelling workflows they use.

Workflows often combine physics-based models (like quantum simulations) and data-driven models (such as machine learning) to predict material properties, safety, and sustainability. Easy-MODA ensures that these workflows are clearly documented, making them FAIR. Easy-MODA forms part of the Enalos Cloud Platform.

Easy-MODA was described in a recent paper published in Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal that highlighted its key aspects and explained the primary function and benefits of using such a system. The method has also been highlighted in a recent Nanopinion article.

Easy-MODA is supported by the CEN Workshop Agreement on Materials modelling – Terminology, classification and metadata (CWA 17284:2018). CEN, provides a platform for the development of European Standards and other technical documents in relation to various kinds of products, materials, services and processes.

Easy-MODA: Simplifying standardised registration of scientific simulation workflows through MODA template guidelines powered by the Enalos Cloud Platform

was written by Panagiotis D. Kolokathis, Nikolaos K. Sidiropoulos, Dimitrios Zouraris, Dimitra-Danai Varsou, Dimitris G. Mintis, Andreas Tsoumanis, Francesco Dondero, Thomas E. Exner, Haralambos Sarimveis, Evgenia Chaideftou, Martin Paparella, Fotini Nikiforou, Achilleas Karakoltzidis, Spyros Karakitsios, Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, Jesper Friis, Gerhard Goldbeck, David A. Winkler, Willie Peijnenburg, Angela Serra and Antreas Afantitis.

Easy-MODA-paper

Or to view the paper, click here.

A version of record of this work is available here.

CHADA training now available

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Training for the new CHADA has now been published and is available.

CHADA – CHAracterization DAta – is an approach used for the definition of terminology, classification and metadata for materials characterization methods. The method aims to provide a standard structure capable of representing all materials characterization data.

CHADA was originally developed in 2019, however a new version has now been developed that benefits from a recently updated CEN Workshop agreement, Materials characterization – Terminology and structured documentation.

The training provides a modular CHADA template and details how diagrams can be produced that are compatible with standard business process model and notation.

After completing the training, users should be able to produce general workflows that are fully understandable by humans and that support machine-processable implementations.

Full details of the training materials are available.

 

Acknowledgement: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No 952869 (NanoMECommons). Additional financial support was provided by the HSBooster CSA project.

 

 

Logo for the EMMO

EMMO 1.0.0 released

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We are pleased to announce the 1.0.0 release of the Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO). This release is a major milestone in a multidisciplinary effort to develop a standard representational framework for the materials and manufacturing sectors, and a culmination of more than seven years of development and collaboration by many projects within the EMMC community.

EMMO overcomes issues of other ontologies in rigorously representing the multi-scale nature of materials, the causal nature of interactions, and the strong connection between material properties and metrology. Furthermore, its novel “Perspectives” approach enables multiple views of the world to co-exist and enrich each other, for example enabling a microscopy image to be represented as an object, as data and as a structural representation of a material.

This collaborative work was led by Emanuele Ghedini from the University of Bologna, Jesper Friis from SINTEF, and Gerhard Goldbeck from Goldbeck Consulting.

Further details about EMMO and the release can be found on EMMO GitHub main page and in the release notes.

OpenModel project logo

Managing the complexity of multiscale modelling with semantic technologies

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Managing the complexity of multiscale modelling with semantic technologies

 

This week, Otello has been taking part in Cecam‘s Workshop on Interfacial Properties: Open Questions (28–30 January, 2025) in Daresbury, UK. This full, three-day workshop was dedicated to discussing several topical issues and problems associated with molecular modelling and simulation of vapour-liquid and liquid-liquid interfaces.

The topics covered included:

  • Thermodynamic properties: Systematization and ontologization in view of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and digital materials and product passports.
  • Methods for curved interfaces, finite-size effects, and nucleation.
  • Multiscale and mesoscopic modelling of interfaces: How consistent can it become?
  • Interfacial micromechanics: Localized quantities, intrinsic interfaces, and capillary waves.
  • Surface tension, virial, and pressure tensor in simulations with rigid multi-site models.
  • Simultaneous molecular model accuracy for both interfacial and bulk properties.

Otello gave a presentation during the first session on thermodynamic properties with the talk “Managing the complexity of multiscale modelling with semantic technologies”. This presentation covers some of the work that Otello has been doing as part of the OpenModel project. He talked about how OpenModel is a management system for materials modelling workflows based on semantic technologies; the importance of a semantic layer for interoperability; workflow documentation; and FAIR data creation.

Managing the complexity of multiscale modelling with semantic technologies

was written and presented by Otello Roscioni.

Cecam_2025 presentation

Or to view the presentation, click here.

A version of record of this work is available here.

Update: See our photo gallery from the event here. Photo credits: Otello Roscioni, GCL.

 

Acknowledgement: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 953167 (OpenModel)

 

Announcing the Characterisation Methodology Domain Ontology (CHAMEO) Release v1.0.0

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We are delighted to announce the release of the Characterisation Methodology Domain Ontology (CHAMEO) v1.0.0.

As part of the NanoMECommons project, GCL has been developing this EMMO-based ontology as a general framework for digitalisation of complex characterisation workflows. This framework is also at the core of the recently updated CEN Workshop Agreement: Materials characterization – Terminology and structured documentation.

CHAMEO provides a machine-readable reference for the characterisation terminology and metadata, and a clear structure to the items that are required for documentation of characterisation experiments and the related data processing. To learn more and read about the latest release. visit the CHAMEO website.

 

Acknowledgement: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No 952869 (NanoMECommons)

 

 

New CEN Workshop Agreement: Materials characterization – Terminology and structured documentation

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Read more
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Operationalising materials modelling workflows in industrial R&D

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Operationalising materials modelling workflows in industrial R&D – a benefits analysis

 

To round off 2024, Goldbeck Consulting, along with colleagues from SINTEF and the University of Bologna, have published a white paper that discusses the importance of materials modelling workflows within enterprises.

The article delves into the benefits, challenges and practicalities of implementing a semantic interoperability platform. These platforms integrate materials modelling more deeply into the enterprise, improves its efficiency and supports collaboration. The paper has been published as part of the OpenModel project.

Within materials science and manufacturing, the use of semantic technologies is expected to be a key priority over the next 5–10 years as industries become increasingly reliant on data-driven decision-making, innovation, and sustainability practices. So, this article, highlights how semantic technologies are transforming materials science innovation.

Operationalising materials modelling workflows in industrial R&D – a benefits analysis

was written by Francesca L. Bleken, Michele Brigadoi, Alessandro Calvio, Vikki Cantrill, Jesper Friis, Gerhard Goldbeck and Otello Maria Roscioni.

OpenModel-White-paper-Final

Or to view the paper, click here.

A version of record of this work is available here.

 

Acknowledgement: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 953167 (OpenModel)

 

Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology paper out now

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Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology: Leveraging
Perspectives via a Showcase of EMMO-Based Domain
and Application Ontologies

 

An article outlining the Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO) has been published in the Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. This article was written by Goldbeck Consulting, along with colleagues from SINTEF, Norway, and the Univeristy of Bologna, Italy, as part of the NanoMECommons and OpenModel EU projects.

This image shows EMMO’s architecture, with its backbone based on mereocausality and its implementation of physics, chemistry
and materials, grounded in current natural science foundations (StandardModel). This figure was taken from Del Nostro, P. et al. Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management – KEOD, 135–142 (2024) published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

The paper outlines the foundations of EMMO and describes its pluralistic (multi-perspective) approach. The paper goes on to describe three application ontologies built on the EMMO: a Battery Testing Ontology, which provides a structured framework for representing knowledge related to battery testing and quality control; a Hyperdimensional Polymer Ontology, which is designed to represent the wide variety of polymeric materials focusing on manufacturing aspects; and a MarketPlace Agent and Expert Ontology, which models experts, their expertise, and the community in the field of Materials Modeling.

Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology: Leveraging Perspectives via a Showcase of EMMO-Based Domain and Application Ontologies

was written by Pierluigi Del Nostro, Gerhard Goldbeck, Ferry Kienberger, Manuel Moertelmaier, Andrea Pozzi, Nawfal Al-Zubaidi-R-Smith, and Daniele Toti.

EMMOpaper

Or to view the paper, click here.

A version of record of this work is available here.

 

Acknowledgement: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreements No 952869 (NanoMECommons) and No 953167 (OpenModel)