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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).

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:

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.

 

 

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)