Materials Cloud as recommended repository of Nature Research's Scientific Data

Materials Cloud is a web platform developed by the NCCR MARVEL in collaboration with the European centre of excellence MaX. It enables the seamless sharing and dissemination of resources in computational materials science, encompassing educational material, interactive tools, simulation services, and curated and raw data. These underpin published results and empower data-based discovery, compliant with data management plans and the FAIR principles.

Scientific Data is an open access journal focused on a new article type, the "Data Descriptor" which has been specifically designed to publish peer-reviewed research data in an accessible way, so as to facilitate its interpretation and reuse. Publishing Data Descriptors enables data producers and curators to gain appropriate credit for their work, whilst also promoting reproducible research. The main goals of this journal are tightly aligned with that of Materials Cloud, focusing on making the data publicly accessible and encouraging re-use.   

Today Materials Cloud joins a wide range of data repositories, representing research data from across the entire scientific spectrum. Materials Cloud has been approved by Scientific Data as providing stable archiving and long-term preservation of materials science datasets. From today, researchers now have the opportunity to deposit materials science data to Materials Cloud, whilst submitting a Data Descriptor to Scientific Data. Upon publication, Materials Cloud will ensure the data is made freely accessible and preserved for the long term benefit of the research community. 

We’re delighted to be working with Springer Nature on this open initiative. We invite the materials science community to share their data by submitting it to Materials Cloud, gain credit for their data by submitting a Data Descriptor to Scientific Data, and contribute to this exciting open data effort.