Ensuring that research data remains findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable—commonly known as the FAIR principles—is a central goal of NFDI-MatWerk. To implement this within the Materials Science and Engineering community, the team conducts dedicated user-journey workshops to understand concrete data and workflow needs and align future developments. In this case, the user-journey workshop was held in collaboration with the SFB/TRR 285 project team at Fraunhofer IWS Dresden.
Led by Christoph Eberl, the participants mapped the full data lifecycle, from capturing raw process measurements to publishing reusable datasets. The workshop identified the key user roles, touchpoints, and pain points along this process, providing a clear overview of where research data is generated, transformed, and shared.
Thanks to the active contributions of all participants, two major outcomes were achieved:
- Streamlined data workflows for experiments and simulations, improving the consistency and efficiency of data transfer and storage across the project.
- Defined minimal metadata requirements to make research results compliant with the FAIR principles and facilitate interoperability within and beyond SFB/TRR 285.
The insights gained will directly inform the next steps, which include the development of standardized metadata schemas. These efforts aim to establish a more transparent and reproducible approach to Research Data Management in mechanical joinability and related fields.
By integrating FAIR-aligned data practices into daily research routines, the collaboration between NFDI-MatWerk and SFB/TRR 285 contributes to a sustainable, open, and efficient research data ecosystem—supporting both current projects and future scientific discovery.