Materials Data Infrastructure: A Roadmap for Enabling Storage and Sharing of Data in the Materials Community

Minerals Metals & Materials Society, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

While all Materials researchers generate data in the course of their research, there remains a dearth of resources for the storage and sharing of this data in a publicly accessible way. This award supports a study to understand the Materials Research community's needs related to infrastructure for the storage and sharing of Materials data. The PIs will assemble a team of experts in Materials Science and Computational and Data Sciences to meet, discuss, and make recommendations regarding the current state of the community's efforts and needs, and paths forward for both the research community and other stakeholders such as federal funding agents. The outcome of the study will be a written report, which will be made publicly available to the community at large. The study will address an important area which has been the topic of much discussion, including numerous meetings and workshops. The need for an infrastructure to support the storage and sharing of Materials data is clear, and has been reemphasized in recent requirements related to the sharing of outcomes from federally funded research. This study will provide a unique forum for experts in the field to convene to assess the current state of the art as well as distilling the community's needs and presenting actionable recommendations. The storage and sharing of Materials data has broad potential impacts to the community, as outlined in numerous documents including the National Academies study on Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (2009), and the President's Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness (2011). The PI team has been at the forefront of Materials Innovation, in particular with respect to the the community's needs for access to materials data. The work has broad support, from the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation, Division of Materials Research, and the Division of Physics. The study will be broadly disseminated, and has the potential for significant impact in the field.