FAIRmat Wins European Digital Skills Award
The consortium for research data infrastructure in materials science enables researchers worldwide to embrace a more digital way of working. For this achievement, it has been recognized by the European Commission.
As research becomes increasingly data-driven, it is more important than ever to organize scientific data in ways that allow researchers, software tools, and artificial intelligence systems to use them effectively. The FAIRmat consortium provides researchers with solutions for structuring, sharing, and reusing scientific data. As a co-applicant, the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) makes a significant contribution to FAIRmat. On 30 June 2026, Henna Virkkunen, Vice-President of the European Commission, handed over the 2026 European Digital Skills Award in the ‘Digital Upskilling @ Work’ category to Prof. Heiko Weber.
“We are delighted to receive this recognition from the European Commission,” says Prof. Dr. Claudia Draxl, spokesperson of FAIRmat and Professor of Physics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). “Scientific progress increasingly depends on our ability to work effectively with data. FAIRmat develops infrastructure and data standards and brings them to the scientific community to help researchers transition toward data-driven science. This award recognizes the collective effort of our team and our partner institutions to make research data more accessible, reusable, and valuable for future discoveries.”
In Erlangen, Dr. Michael Krieger, Prof. Dr. Heiko Weber and their team at the Chair of Applied Physics at FAU have developed concepts within FAIRmat to make it easier to get started with structured research data. “In particular, our open-source software NOMAD CAMELS simplifies computer control of experiments and automatically generates structured datasets that meet the highest standards,” says Heiko Weber. “Also in their studies, physics students in Erlangen learn modern data management earlier than at most other universities.”
Digital skills and materials research
The European Digital Skills Awards honor initiatives that promote digital skills and support the European Union’s digital transformation across education, industry, public services, and research. The awards are presented as part of the European Union’s Digital Decade 2030 initiative.
FAIRmat was selected from more than 220 applications submitted by organizations across Europe. The award recognizes FAIRmat’s contribution to advancing a digital, data-driven way of working in scientific research.
At the heart of FAIRmat is NOMAD (Novel Materials Discovery), the consortium’s research data management platform, where materials science data can be processed and stored. These data form the basis for their reuse in future research as well as artificial intelligence applications. NOMAD enables researchers in materials science to integrate data-driven methods into their research. Beyond the software itself, FAIRmat offers a comprehensive outreach program that supports researchers on their path toward a data-driven digital future.
Open infrastructure for researchers
FAIRmat is a consortium of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), coordinated at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The consortium is committed to the FAIR principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability of digital data, to the principles of open-source software, and, more broadly, to building a research data infrastructure that promotes comprehensive, globally accessible open datasets.
Since the project began in 2021, FAIRmat has organized more than 100 training events and developed a broad portfolio of openly accessible educational resources. The consortium works closely with universities, graduate programs, research networks, and international partner institutions to strengthen digital skills and data literacy throughout the scientific community.
Further information
FAIRmat: www.fairmat-nfdi.eu
NOMAD CAMELS: nomad-lab.eu/nomad-lab/nomad-camels.html
NOMAD is a data infrastructure and open-source software family for research data management in materials sciences: nomad-lab.eu
European Digital Skills Awards 2026: digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/initiatives/european-digital-skills-awards-2026