Welcome to NFDI-MatWerk, the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Materials Science and Engineering (in German: Nationale ForschungsDatenInfrastruktur für Materialwissenschaft und Werkstofftechnik). This page provides background information about the project, funding, and the Germany-wide NFDI initiative.
NFDI-MatWerk's mission is to bring a new level of efficiency and collaboration to the management, sharing, and use of research data within the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) community. This includes both experimental and simulative data, as well as associated metadata, including the integration from different sources and standardization. This infrastructure is essential to support innovative research by providing the necessary tools and frameworks for efficient data management and long-term accessibility.
MSE has always been essential to social and economic progress, providing innovative solutions for challenges in energy, mobility, environmental sustainability, and more. However, the complexity of research work with different materials, methods, and scales presents significant challenges in effectively managing the vast amounts of data generated by this modern research.
Today’s research produces immense volumes of data, yet much of it remains underutilized due to fragmentation, lack of standardization, and incomplete metadata. By applying the FAIR principles — making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable — we aim to unlock the full potential of research data across the MSE community. NFDI-MatWerk addresses these issues by creating a unified platform that consolidates diverse datasets, making them easily accessible and promoting data sharing and exploration. Through standardized formats and robust data management practices, we enable seamless integration of distributed data, experimental and numerical workflows, and a comprehensive materials ontology to maximize interoperability and reproducibility. A key element of the NFDI-MatWerk infrastructure is the MSE Knowledge Graph, which makes the metadata of all registered MatWerk datasets findable and accessible to researchers.
What makes NFDI-MatWerk unique is our commitment to meeting the needs of the MSE community? We continuously analyze data use profiles from various sub-disciplines to identify the most pressing scientific challenges. These insights guide the creation of Infrastructure Use Cases (IUCs), which in turn shape the ongoing development and refinement of our infrastructure. This ensures that NFDI-MatWerk is directly addressing the real needs of researchers.
By integrating research outcomes into a national data infrastructure, NFDI-MatWerk increases the visibility and impact of scientific results. We’re also fostering a culture of open data sharing, with clear guidelines and recognition for those who contribute their data. Join us as we work together to shape the future of MSE with NFDI-MatWerk — where data becomes a powerful tool for discovery and innovation.
NFDI-MatWerk is focused on Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) within the DFG subject classification system's areas 4.31 & 4.32. Since 2021, NFDI-MatWerk is funded under the project number 460247524. The project details on the DFG website GEPRIS can be found here. The published proposal for NFDI-MatWerk can be found here for the first funding period (2021-2026) and here for the second funding period (2026-2031).
The DFG's support underscores the importance of creating a unified infrastructure that addresses the challenges of data management in materials science and engineering (MSE). This funding covers the development of data storage solutions, the creation of metadata standards, and the implementation of secure data exchange protocols. It will also ensure that data management practices comply with regulatory requirements and national and international standards.
On 26 November 2018, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland committed to funding initiatives aimed at making research data from various scientific disciplines systematically and uniformly accessible. This strategic move towards systematic and barrier-free standardization of data by researchers and academic institutions is designed to foster substantial efficiency gains and synergies between individual researchers and bespoke IT systems. In an era increasingly defined by digital infrastructures, this initiative is pivotal in shaping the future conduct of research.
Considering the project’s complexity and breadth, the German Research Foundation (DFG) employs a strategic approach by forming and networking consortia to administer the NFDI grants. These consortia play a critical role in ensuring that the funding reflects a broad array of stakeholders across various sub-disciplines, thus maximizing the expertise and acceptance of the developed solutions.
NFDI-MatWerk
Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under the National Research Data Infrastructure – NFDI 38/1 – project number 460247524.
NFDI-MatWerk
Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under the National Research Data Infrastructure – NFDI 38/1 – project number 460247524.
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