MaRDA—the Materials Research Data Alliance—coalesced from discussions and working sessions at the 2019 NSF-funded Summit on Big Data and Materials Cyberinfrastructure, which brought together 80 leaders from across the materials data landscape. That event revealed a community with similar values and goals interested in building a culture of data sharing and the kind of work it enables.

MaRDA aims to connect and develop the community needed for sharing materials research data to foster a materials data infrastructure combining software, hardware, and community-wide standards for access, interoperation, and use of materials data.