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PSDI & Royce Materials Data Summit

PSDI & Royce Materials Data Summit

📅 Dates: 29th -31st July 2026
📍 Location: Nancy Rothwell Building, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL
🤝 Organised by: The Henry Royce Institute & the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure

Overview

The Henry Royce Institute and the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) are pleased to announce the PSDI & Royce Materials Data Summit, which will be held from 29th to 31st July 2026 at the University of Manchester.

This event aims to bring together professionals working on digitalisation in materials science, giving them the opportunity to share their work, learn about recent developments, and build collaborations.

Topics in scope for the event include, but are not limited to, the following (in the context of materials):

    • Data standards, metadata quality, ontologies, and semantic interoperability
    • Digital research tools, including workflow automation frameworks and electronic laboratory notebooks
    • Community databases and curated data collections
    • Data-driven applications of AI
    • Autonomous laboratories and digital twins

We welcome participants from a wide range of backgrounds, e.g. experimentalists, computational scientists, industry, software engineers, data engineers, data stewards.

Format

The event will be split into two parts:

    • The 29th July will be dedicated to hands‑on training sessions where participants will be given the chance to try bleeding-edge digital tools. This training day will run from 1100-1845.
    • The 30th and 31st July will have the format of a traditional conference, featuring invited talks from leaders in the field and a poster exhibition. Participants attending this part of the event will be invited to submit abstracts for the poster exhibition. The conference will run from 0900-1800 on 30th July, and 0900-1730 on 31st July. Moreover, we hope to provide a optional conference dinner on the evening of the 30th July, and tours of the host institution’s laboratories during the conference days.

Participants can register for one or both parts of the event (see below for link). At registration participants can specify their interest in, e.g. the conference dinner and lab tour. Note that there will be a charge to attend the training day. (This charge does not apply to those involved in running a training session). The cost is yet to be finalised, but will be approximately £50-65. On the other hand the conference will be free to attend. The exception is the optional conference dinner,  which will have a cost to be determined.

Note that this event is in-person only for participants.

A detailed timetable for the event (both parts) will be published at PSDI & Royce Materials Data Summit (29th-31st July 2026): Timetable · STFC Indico.

Participate

Motivation

This event builds on the success of the 2025 PSDI Materials Community Workshop, hosted at the Royce Institute, which attracted strong interest from researchers across the UK and Europe. That workshop became a catalyst for ongoing cross‑community dialogue on digital approaches in materials research.

While numerous specialised meetings exist – for example, on computational simulation, data curation, AI, semantic interoperability, or experimental data analysis – these events typically focus on their own technical domain rather than on materials as a unifying theme. As a result, communication across the materials community remains fragmented, slowing the development of coherent, multi‑aspect digitalisation strategies.

Conversely, broad materials‑research conferences (such as the UK’s Materials Research Exchange) include digitalisation as one topic among many, but their generalist audiences limit the depth and continuity of discussions around digital technologies.

‘PSDI & Royce Materials Data Summit’ aims to close this gap by offering a dedicated and inclusive forum for a holistic, multi‑faceted conversation about materials digitalisation.

Further information

For specific enquiries please contact:

The call for abstracts is open

You can submit an abstract for reviewing.

Submit new abstract

Registration

Registration for this event is currently open.

Register now

29th-31st July 2026

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