EMMC welcomes the publication of the Scientific Opinion on Advanced Materials by the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, elaborated by the Scientific Advice Mechanism to the European Commission. EMMC is pleased to have been able to contribute by participating in a Stakeholder Meeting discussing a draft of the recommendations.
In particular, we welcome the strong emphasis on modelling and digital representation of materials as a core to the report’s Recommendation 1: “Support the creation of data spaces for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data, digitalisation, AI and computational methods for accelerating safe-and-sustainable advanced materials research and commercialisation”. The following highlight some recommendations of particular significance to the EMMC community, and to which many EMMC related initiatives are contributing.
- The use AI to connect data bases and speed up the development of FAIR+ data (FAIR+ meaning FAIR data including safe and sustainable aspects)
- The development of common data languages (terminologies, taxonomies and ontologies) with Materials Commons playing a key role
- Research initiatives to extract data from literature.
- Boosting modelling and experimentation including building on Europe’s strengths in modelling by sustaining and modernising flagship simulation codes and their surrounding software ecosystems.
- Support self-driving labs with SME access and simple KPIs to measure success
- Support digital twins with uncertainty quantification and validation kits for priority materials systems
- Promote the use of digitalisation and AI in tools and analytics across the whole value chain, in particular to prioritise design for sustainability. Any AI use should be required to provide proportionate, transparent accounting of the energy and carbon impacts of training and deploying large models.
- Utilising the full potential of digital product passports to integrate sustainability features and support the recovery of critical raw materials building up to meet progressive requirements
- Support for databases and mechanisms for the sharing of information relevant to certification and regulation
EMMC looks forward to continued discussion and to support steps towards addressing current challenges of the European Advanced Materials ecosystem.
