The focus of the WG is on increasing domain practitioner uptake of the FAIR principles in (in particular in connection with Interoperability and Reusability), supported by improved resources, such as widely-agreed and FAIR terminologies, metadata schemas and ontologies. While the main focus of the WG is in the material sciences, close interactions with cognate domains, i.e. chemistry and physics, are crucial in order to avoid conflicting approaches and also to utilise and integrate with already existing semantic artefacts and resources in these fields. The group brings together activities and initiatives related to FAIR data in materials domains from many European countries, EU projects, and initiatives in the US, Korea and Japan. There are currently 50 members registered via the RDA site.

The WG was established just before the 22nd Plenary Meeting and formally kicked off its activity at the 22nd Plenary Meeting. By the time of the 23rd Plenary Meeting the WG is anticipated to have made significant progress on Work Streams A and B, which are described in the charter [https://www.rd-alliance.org/rationale/harmonised-terminologies-and-schemas-fair-data-materials-science-and-related-domains-wg/rev-002/]. This progress will be presented to a wider audience at the 23rd Plenary Meeting. The WG is also anticipating the kickoff of Work Stream C at the 23rd meeting, which is also described in the charter.