Source: Dr. Ahmed Esam Ahmed Mansour
From April 13 to 16, 2026, the NFDI-MatWerk/FAIRmat Spring School 2026 took place at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) on the topic of “Research Data Management in Materials Science and Engineering.” A total of 17 participants, including advanced master’s students, doctoral candidates, postdocs, and early-career researchers, came together to engage intensively with FAIR research data practices and practical tools for everyday research.
Diverse Program Focused on RDM Tools
The four-day event focused primarily on the practical application of modern RDM tools. In addition to theoretical foundations on the FAIR Data Principles, participants had numerous opportunities to work with various programs themselves and to systematically record, document, and process research data.
Highlights of the program included, among others:
- Introduction to electronic lab notebooks (ELNs): Following a basic overview, participants engaged intensively with the PASTA-ELN program in two sequential modules.
- Hands-on workshop in FAU’s electronics lab: The demonstration of a complete research workflow under real laboratory conditions was particularly illustrative. Measurement data was recorded live using the NOMAD CAMELS program and subsequently analyzed and documented using NOMAD Oasis and NORTH.
- Publishing research data: Participants learned how to upload, structure, share, and publish data in NOMAD, including the creation of citable datasets with a DOI.
- Getting to know RDM platforms: In addition, the Coscine platform was tested in practice. During the discussions, it became clear how important early and structured data organization is as a foundation for AI-supported analyses and machine learning applications.
Organization of the Spring School
The Spring School was jointly organized by Dr.-Ing. Flavio Soldera (Saarland University / EUSMAT, NFDI-MatWerk), Dr.-Ing. Ullal Pranav Nayak (Saarland University, NFDI-MatWerk), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Luca Ghiringhelli (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, FAIRmat), and Dr. Ahmed Mansour (Humboldt University of Berlin, FAIRmat).
The joint Spring School organized by NFDI-MatWerk and FAIRmat impressively demonstrated how theoretical concepts of research data management can be linked to concrete applications in everyday laboratory work. By combining foundational instruction, infrastructure knowledge, and hands-on exercises, the event provided a comprehensive insight into modern RDM workflows in the materials sciences.
Further Information
Further information on future workshops and training opportunities can be found on the websites of NFDI-MatWerk, FAIRmat, and EUSMAT.
If you have any questions regarding research data management, we are always happy to assist you. The RDM team looks forward to hearing from you and will be happy to help!
Responsible for the content of this article is Hania Eid.
The following source served as the basis for this article:
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