• © Natalia Slepenko via idw

    © Natalia Slepenko via idw

    29.09.2026

    Researching together, thinking together: Berlin institutions join forces in materials research

Whether in a smartphone chip, a solar panel on the roof or an e-bike battery, many of the things we use every day contain materials that were often developed and tested in laboratories over many years. Before a new material is ready for use, researchers examine numerous variants and generate large volumes of measurement data in the process. This makes data the raw material of modern materials research. And this is exactly where five research institutions in Brain City Berlin are now joining forces. 

By signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in July 2026, the NFDI consortium FAIRmat at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), the Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung (IKZ), the Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik (PDI) and the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) have agreed on long-term cooperation. The focus is on shared research data infrastructures, common standards for data and metadata, and the use of AI methods in materials research. 

FAIRmat: five years of groundwork, now entering a second funding phase 

The MoU comes at a time of new momentum for FAIRmat. In July 2026, the consortium, which has been coordinated at Humboldt-Universität since it was founded in 2021, learned that the German Research Foundation (DFG) would extend its funding. The Joint Science Conference of the federal and state governments (GWK) confirmed FAIRmat, together with nine other NFDI consortia, for a second funding period. 

“The continuation of funding is an important recognition of the progress FAIRmat has made over the past five years and a commitment to the future,” says Professor Claudia Draxl, spokesperson for FAIRmat and Professor of Physics at Humboldt-Universität. “Research data management has become an essential part of modern research. The second funding period will allow us to further expand our services, strengthen collaboration with researchers and partner institutions within and beyond the NFDI, and continue to develop solutions that enable open, reproducible and data-driven science.” 

In its second phase, FAIRmat is setting a new focus: “Enabling Data-driven Science”. The emphasis is on making greater use of AI for data-driven science. The basis for this is the NOMAD platform, which FAIRmat developed for solid-state research and which offers a wide range of tools for processing, storing, analysing and reusing research data. 

A shared data space for materials research 

The MoU builds on this foundation. The aim of the cooperation is to make research data usable across institutions. Until now, institutions have often worked with different formats and systems, which makes sharing data difficult. With the MoU, the five partners are laying the groundwork for data from different laboratories to be combined, compared and analysed together. 

Prof. Dr. Bernd Rech, Scientific Director of HZB, underlines the strategic importance of this step: “The future of materials research is data-driven. High-quality research data and metadata form the basis for artificial intelligence and for self-driving laboratories: fully automated research labs that combine robotics and AI. This cooperation creates an important prerequisite for driving this development forward together and for further establishing Berlin as a leading location for digital materials research.” 

Signing at the FAIRmat-HZB Symposium 

The MoU was signed on 20 July 2026 at the FAIRmat-HZB Symposium on “The Digital Future of Materials Science”. The keynote was given by the internationally renowned scientist Giorgio Rossi of the University of Milan and the NFFA network, who highlighted the importance of shared research infrastructures for data-driven science. Draxl then showed how the NOMAD platform is preparing materials research for new data-driven approaches. A panel discussion entitled “Driving the Cultural Change” addressed the question of what needs to change for research data and AI to realise their full potential. 

First practical test: the ASCEND project 

The cooperation is more than a declaration of intent. With the ASCEND project, HZB is already demonstrating what a shared data space can achieve in practice: the project uses cross-institutional data infrastructures to accelerate the development of new materials. 

For Brain City Berlin, the MoU and the extended FAIRmat funding together send a strong signal: five institutions that previously managed their data in separate systems are now jointly laying the foundations for the materials science of tomorrow. 

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