The Henry Royce Institute (Royce) has officially opened submissions for experimental datasets, models and tools to the recently launched Digital Materials Foundry, an important initiative designed to accelerate the digitalisation of materials innovation across the UK.
Developed as part of Royce’s strategic commitment to advancing Materials 4.0, the Foundry is now seeking high-quality contributions* from academia and industry. Submissions may include experimental materials datasets, machine learning-based property prediction models, language processing tools tailored to materials science and associated coding and tools.
The Digital Materials Foundry aims to serve as both a centralised open-access repository and an innovation catalyst, enabling greater collaboration, data sharing and rapid discovery in the materials science community.
By bringing together experimental data, AI models and digital infrastructure, the Foundry directly addresses key priorities highlighted in the UK’s National Materials Innovation Strategy, where digital adoption is cited as a major cross-cutting enabler of materials advancement.
Key resources currently aggregated by the Foundry include:
- Comprehensive, high-quality experimental materials databases
- Domain-specific language models for materials science applications
- Property prediction tools to support data-driven discovery
- Industry-standard benchmark datasets for key materials applications (in development)
These tools are designed to reduce duplication, increase reproducibility and enable researchers to more effectively harness the power of AI and machine learning in the materials domain.
Professor Jacqueline Cole, Challenge Lead in AI for Materials at the Henry Royce Institute and Head of Molecular Engineering at the University of Cambridge, who has developed and is leading on the Foundry, commented:
“The materials science community really requires a step-change in the availability of high-quality, machine-actionable data. The Digital Materials Foundry was created to meet this demand offering a trusted, open platform where researchers can contribute, discover and collaborate. Its ambition is not just to be a data repository but a key innovation tool.
“This initiative is also a direct response to the National Materials Innovation Strategy’s call for greater digitisation. By pooling resources and expertise, the Foundry will help drive forward a more connected, data-rich future for our materials research community.”
Researchers, developers, and innovators are encouraged to explore the Foundry’s resources and play an active role in its continued growth.
To engage with the Digital Materials Foundry, whether to submit a dataset or enquire further, please email info@royce.ac.uk with the subject line Digital Materials Foundry.
* Royce defines “high-quality” as data, code or models that have been successfully published through a peer-reviewed process or an equivalent standard (e.g., acceptance as an industry standard).
