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Interoperability review highlights fragmented standards and the need for a connected future

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A recent review that looks at interoperability within the materials and manufacturing sector has been published in The Journal of Industrial Information Integration. Although several reviews have been published on this topic, this review takes a broad look at the barriers to interoperability with regards to data from a European perspective.

Vast swaths of data are created within materials science and manufacturing. Enabling all this data to be understood and re-used across systems is an enormous barrier to being able to make the most of the knowledge it contains. This review analysed the breadth of work taking place and the differences that exist between everyone’s interpretation of interoperability.

 

A figure showing the current interoperability landscape covered in the review article. Reprinted from the Journal of Industrial Information Integration, Vol 51, Chiacchiera S, et al., “An analysis of interoperability in materials and manufacturing: Definitions, classifications, requirements, and recommendations”, 101116.

 

Defining moment

When the authors looked at how interoperability was expressed across research and industry, they found a surprising variety of definitions. The review compares 18 definitions of interoperability, 22 classification schemes and 15 definitions of semantic interoperability, identifying 65 different interoperability types overall.

To support the transition towards Industry 5.0, interoperability will be crucial for the effective and efficient use of semantic technologies and knowledge representations, so current conflicting terminology and incompatible frameworks are impractical. Future systems will require stronger collaboration to allow people and automated systems to work together more effectively. Therefore, real interoperability, in which information retains the same meaning across platforms, is becoming increasingly important.

Standard issue

The review highlights that even when FAIR guidelines are being implemented, its flexible interpretation results in incompatibility issues. Here, the authors recommend more precise terminology and definitions alongside robust coordination initiatives. For improved data re-use, ontologies and controlled vocabularies will become essential, particularly as emerging technologies and digital twins add additional layers of complexity for standardisation.

Overall, the outlook is optimistic. Interoperability is an evolving and significant challenge. Even so, the considerable human efforts to support standardisation across Europe together with greater use of semantic technologies and shared data will provide support for future digital manufacturing systems.

An analysis of interoperability in materials and manufacturing: Definitions,
classifications, requirements, and recommendations

was written by Silvia Chiacchiera, John Breslin, Ana Teresa Correia, Jesper Friis, Emanuele Ghedini, Gerhard Goldbeck, Martin Thomas Horsch, Mohamed Hedi Karray, Bjørn Tore Løvfall, Jinzhi Lu, Ilaria Maria Paponetti, María Poveda-Villalón, Arkopaul Sarkar, Umutcan Serles, Ilian T. Todorov, Noel Vizcaino, Lan Yang and Francesco Antonio Zaccarini.

An analysis of interoperability in materials and manufacturing_paper

The version of record of this review is available here.

Acknowledgement

This work is a development and extension of a deliverable for the OntoCommons project, D3.8 – Report on the finalized Review of Domain Interoperability. This work has received funding from the European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme GA No. 958371 (OntoCommons), Horizon 2020 GA No. 953163 (DOME), Horizon Europe GA Nos. 101137725 (BatCAT) and 101091687 (MatCHMaker), Research Council of Norway RCN 309584 (SFI PhysMet), and Research Ireland Grant 12/RC/2289_P2 (Insight).

An overview of 2025!

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Another busy year at Goldbeck Consulting during 2025, so here we take a moment to reflect on the highlights from the last 12 months. Our sincere thanks go out to our clients, partners and collaborators, and we look forward to what 2026 will bring!

We successfully completed two EU-funded projects early in the year, OpenModel and nanoMECommons, and we are just over half-way through one of our other projects, BatCAT, for which we just completed the alignment of ontologies with the EMMO.

This year also saw the successful launch of Semantic Materials — the semantic technologies branch of Goldbeck Consulting Ltd. Semantic Materials brings together a team of experts and partner organisations in Europe to support clients in chemicals and materials industries in building science-based, data-centric knowledge management systems.

As part of the Semantic Materials initiative, we also announced a new, working collaborative agreement with Semantic Partners, known for their technology stack expertise. We look forward to continuing work with them throughout 2026.

And, we developed our Semantic Data Management Maturity Assessment Service, a self-assessment tool to give you insight into the key issues of knowledge management.

 

Our work has enabled us to take part in several events, like

Cecam’s Workshop on Interfacial Properties: Open Questions

EMMC 2025 International Workshop

PSDI Materials Community Workshop

FEMS EUROMAT 2025

The Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains WG workshop – “Data Cataloguing for Materials Science and related domains”.

RDA 25th Plenary Meeting

Semantic Materials Workshop 2025

 

Alongside the events attended, there have been numerous presentations and posters:

Managing the complexity of multiscale modelling with semantic technologies by Otello Roscioni.

Knowledge representation of battery manufacturing supported by an integrated ontology system by Gerhard Goldbeck, Silvia Chiacchiera, Martin Petit and Martin T. Horsch.

Materials knowledge and data representation with a European ontology ecosystem by Gerhard Goldbeck

EMMO Ontology: enabling AI-based innovative advanced materials development: the CoBRAIN Knowledge Base for hardmetal thermal spraying coatings by Gerhard Goldbeck and Emanuele Ghedini

EMMO: an ontology based on universal materials science concepts by Gerhard Goldbeck

 

Publications have also been key to our work this year:

Application of the CHADA Workflow (CWA 17815:2025) for High-Speed Nanoindentation Mapping on Battery Cathodes by Daniele Duranti et al.

Training for the new CHADA was published.

Published paper Easy-MODA: Simplifying standardised registration of scientific simulation workflows through MODA template guidelines powered by the Enalos Cloud Platform Iseult Lynch, Antreas Afantitis et al. This publication supports the use of Easy-MODA – a free web tool for researchers to document and register complex modelling workflows.

Knowledge organisation and intelligent R&D for chemicals and materials industries – A workshop report by Gerhard Goldbeck, Vikki Cantrill, Ferry Kienberger, and Alexandra Simperler

 

Finally, our semantic technologies work has led to an approved CEN workshop agreement and the release of two ontology versions:

A new CEN Workshop Agreement on Materials characterization – Terminology and structured documentation has been published. This new agreement provides a standardised framework, called the CHAracterisation DAta (CHADA) model that documents materials characterization processes in a structured and consistent manner.

Released Characterisation Methodology Domain Ontology (CHAMEO) v1.0 for characterisation terminology and metadata.

Released the Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO) v1.0 as a standard representational framework for the materials and manufacturing sectors in collaboration by many within the EMMC community.

Overall, a great year and we are looking forward to 2026!

 

OpenModel project logo
EMMC logo

 

EMMC logo

EMMO: A universal materials science ontology

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Now that the 18th European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes, FEMS EUROMAT 2025, has drawn to a close in Granada, Spain, we reflect on the second of Gerhard’s talks that he gave on Thursday as part of the “Digital materials: rapid materials, experiments, simulation workflows, ontologies and interoperability” session. The talk was entitled: EMMO: an ontology based on universal materials science concepts.

In his talk, Gerhard highlighted that top level ontologies (TLO) involve a stronger commitment to what things are and how they relate to each other than schema. Gerhard introduced EMMO as a TLO committed to a science-based world view, with added common-sense perspectives that enable the same material thing to be described in different ways. He then went on to explain the TLO ISO standard, which provides a way for TLOs to document their commitments to different concepts, such as space and time.

For those just beginning their journey in semantic technologies, Gerhard also introduced EMMO-LITE, a user-friendly version of EMMO with the most widely used concepts for applications in materials sciences that does not require the user to have specific physics or philosophical expertise. Finally, examples from different projects, like BatCAT, were discussed.

For anyone interested in learning more about the differences between schema and ontologies and how the latter offers a more robust, future-compatible solution, we recommend the newsletter article When Standards Fail by John Bittner as part of his series of newsletter called Semantically Speaking.

 

 

The EMMC works across Europe in the area of development, validation, adoption and industrial exploitation of materials modelling with a strong focus on digital tools and data, fostering interoperability, and standardisation so enterprises can become more sustainable, competitive and innovative.

EMMO — formally the Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology — is a top-level ontology framework for materials, their properties, structures, and processes.

Here is a copy of Gerhard’s presentation today:

 

Acknowledgement

This work was presented on behalf of the EMMC and has received funding from European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon Research and Innovation programme, GA Nos. 101092211 (CoBRAIN), 101091912 (AID4GREENEST), and  101137725 (BatCAT), and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee, GA no 10091190 (BatCAT).

 

BatCAT consortium meeting in Newcastle

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Last week, all partners from the BatCAT project met at The Catalyst in Newcastle, UK for a consortium meeting that marked the halfway stage of the project. Representatives from the partner organisations reviewed and discussed progress, exchanged ideas, and charted the course for the project’s next steps.

This successful meeting was an opportunity to see how far we have come and reflect on the project’s key achievements so far. In addition to the working sessions, the programme also included a tour of the facilities at the Centre for Process Innovation in Sedgefield — this included a first-hand view of the (robot automated) pilot lines for electrode slurry formulation and the recently installed coating line and cell build and testing line, an open training session entitled “On-line Characterization within digitalized manufacturing”, a walking tour of the area, and time to socialise and network with project colleagues.

We look forward to building on the outcomes of this meeting over the coming months. Here are a few photos of the event.

 

BatCAT consortium meeting
Visit to CPI Sedgefield
Facility tour at CPI Sedgefield
Walking tour
BatCAT consortium dinner

 

 

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.

Announcing Semantic Materials

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We are delighted to announce the launch of Semantic Materials, a new venture that delivers science- and analytics-based knowledge organisation systems to industrial and research communities across Europe.

Semantic Materials forms the semantic technologies branch of Goldbeck Consulting that brings together experts in science and engineering, and analytic philosophy to design and develop ontologies for research and innovation.

This venture is the culmination of several projects that we have been involved with. It incorporates the Elementary Multiperspective Material Ontology (EMMO) along with many tools and developments from several EU funded projects: OntoTrans, OpenModel, NanoMECommons and BatCAT.

Learn more about Semantic Materials or get in touch with us or the Semantic Materials team directly.

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:

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)

 

OpenModel project logo

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)

 

EMMC logo

CONNECT-NM kick-off meeting Madrid

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Today, as part of his work with the EMMC, Gerhard is giving a talk at the CONNECT-NM kick-off meeting that is taking place at CIEMAT in Madrid.

Coordination of the European Research Community on Nuclear Materials for Energy Innovation (CONNECT-NM) is a project that answers the Euratom WP call “Cofund HORIZON-EURATOM-2023-NRT-01-04”, for a co-funded European partnership with the aim of boosting innovation in the field of nuclear materials for use in reactors ranging from light water to GenIV, by combining modern digital technologies with materials science practices.

Importantly, the handling of data, including its semantic documentation, is one of the research streams that forms part of the CONNECT-NM project. This project also includes multiscale materials modelling and testing, which makes it relevant to much of the work that Goldbeck Consulting undertakes.

Picture of lectures at the Connect-NM kick-off meeting

Picture of lectures at the Connect-NM kick-off meeting

Gerhard’s presentation is entitled: European community activities in materials modelling, digitalisation, interoperability and data standards:

EMMC_Connect-nm

Or, you can view the presentation here.

 

Acknowledgement: This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreements OpenModel (GA n. 953167) and NanoMECommons (GA n. 952869)