Community Action on FAIR Data will Fuel a Revolution in Materials Research

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the critical need for community-driven efforts to share and standardize materials data as FAIR to accelerate innovation and discovery in materials research.

Contribution

It highlights opportunities for collaborative global actions to assemble large, FAIR-compliant materials datasets, addressing current data sharing limitations.

Findings

Current data sharing is limited and biased.

FAIR data principles can transform materials research.

Community action can enable a data-driven revolution.

Abstract

Data - arguably the most important product of worldwide materials research investment - are rarely shared. The small and biased proportion of results published are buried in plots and text licensed by journals. This situation wastes resources, hinders innovation, and, in the current era of data-driven discovery, is no longer tenable. In this comment, we identify opportunities for synergistic, collaborative, and global actions to assemble large quantities of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) (1) materials data.