From 6 to 7 November 2025, the planning meeting of the Coalition for the Sustainability of Digital Data Standards in the Chemical Sciences took place in London. Following meetings in Cambridge (2024) and Delitzsch (spring 2025), numerous organisations from science, industry and infrastructure were once again involved, including IUPAC, CODATA, Pistoia Alliance, NFDI4Chem, PSDI, InChI Trust, IUCr, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Beilstein Institute. The aim was to lay the foundations for a sustainable, coordinated landscape of community-driven standards. Johannes Liermann attended the meeting on behalf of NFDI4Chem.
The aim of the coalition is to overcome the fragmentation of existing standards. Clear governance structures and practical tools such as the use case register and standards mapping are intended to accelerate acceptance. In the long term, this should ensure the quality, interoperability and reusability of chemical data. The participants particularly emphasised the need to establish professional coordination and financial resources in addition to voluntary commitment, because “our scarcest resource is our time”.
The Coalition aims to establish an institutional platform that brings together scientists, software developers, publishers, regulatory authorities and industry to embed FAIR principles in chemistry and simplify digital workflows. Over the next few months, the first phase of work will involve establishing a steering committee and developing a business plan for this platform. The coordinator is Derek Craston (IUPAC). Participants were highly motivated to advance this platform as a joint, pre-competitive project to create an open, interoperable and future-proof chemical data infrastructure.
