The Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) programme was first conceived in a Statement of Need in late 2020 and has since developed through several phases. This page summarises some of the work in the history of our project and you can click through in the different areas to read more about the individual phases.
Statement of Need (Nov 2020 – Feb 2021)
PSDI Pilot (Nov 2021 – March 2022)
Phase 1 (Oct 2022 – Dec 2023)
Phase 2 (Jan 2024 – present)
2020 – Statement of Need
PSDI was first described in response to an EPSRC Statement of Need (SoN) call for Large Infrastructure Investments as a step-change in the evolution of coordinated national provision of chemistry and materials data resources which had been previously provided by the proposing organisations through the Chemical Database Service, CDS, (1984-2017) and Physical Sciences Data-science Service, PSDS (2018-2025). The SoN outlined a plan for the PSDI programme, framing the ambition and strategic importance of investing in a physical sciences digital data infrastructure. This was well supported by the community with backing from over 40 projects and initiatives. It demonstrated a consensus that research data infrastructure investment lagged far behind funding for data sources, and identified an urgent requirement for integrating data and computational infrastructures.
2021 – The Pilot
Based on this SoN, EPSRC invited a proposal for a short intensive pilot project (Phase 1a); which was funded by the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) programme and ran for 4.5 months. This was a rapid scoping exercise that engaged broadly with the potential user community and stakeholders to gather and analyse requirements and develop a roadmap for future investment. The pilot focused on requirements gathering, identifying pain points and the need for physical sciences services, trialling relevant technologies, stakeholder engagement events, and demonstrating potential scientific benefits through case studies.
The community consultation resulted in developed a roadmap for future investment by clarifying the scope of a Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure and the requirements of our community. The pilot conclusions are summarised in a Report and Recommendations for future phases of PSDI.
2022 – Phase 1
Phase 1 expanded the pilot to deepen engagement with the community, refine the infrastructure requirements into technical specifications and begin development. Although funding was initially only committed for 12 months, and then a further 3 months, a 30-month development plan was proposed, leading to a first release of PSDI in March 2025. The phase was split into 5 work packages focusing on Management and Governance, Communications and Training, Platform Development and Operation, First Pathfinders and Future Pathfinders. This phase laid the foundations of the infrastructure and initiated five “pathfinders” to serve as exemplars and also to drive requirements for the PSDI platform.
2024 – Phase 2
With the support of the Physical Sciences community, a clear project scope and roadmap for development the project was ready to embark on the second half of the 30month development project proposed at the start of phase 1, culminating in the delivery of the PSDI platform. This phase saw a shift to more implementation-focused activities, and efforts are increasingly centred around infrastructure design and development, however, we introduced a further 4 pathfinders to PSDI through new partnerships. This has involved a deeper engagement with the nature of data held in our resources, leveraging the pathfinders to drive and validate our approach. We are broadening our community engagement, with a strong focus not just on informing stakeholders, but actively seeking their feedback and providing guidance.
2025 – Welcome to now
This is where we are in our current story – welcome to the PSDI platform. The infrastructure was launched as an early release in early April 2025 and will be opened up to UK Academics soon after. The PSDI platform in its initial release includes outputs from projects across a wide range of domains including: experimental data capture, computational workflows, and advanced materials processing alongside guidance and training resources.
These resources aim to create exemplar systems for future PSDI expansions, supporting diverse data types, techniques, and user communities in the physical sciences. While implementation and operation of these new resources is very important to us, community engagement and requirements gathering are still essential components of our work. It is our hope that future iterations will maintain our current offering whilst adding more resources and project outputs.
We are also keen to gain user feedback at this crucial stage. A key aim of PSDI is to ensure that the tools, services, guidance documentation, and training resources we provide elevates research activity and eliminates time consuming processes.
You can always share your feedback with the team by emailing [email protected] and sign up to our mailing list to hear more about our project work!