Since its founding, the MaterialDigital initiative has developed into a vibrant, growing community and exchange platform at the interface of materials science and digitalization. Actors from universities, research institutions and industry are jointly advancing digital approaches for materials. The great response to the funding announcements shows how strong interest and engagement are in this area.

By 2026, there have been a total of three calls for MaterialDigital projects:

The first announcement met with great interest from universities as well as non-university research and science institutions in the field of materials science and materials engineering. A total of 166 proposals were submitted on a broad range of topics. Within the framework of this funding initiative "MaterialDigital 1", 13 collaborative projects with a volume of approximately 19 million euros were funded in the period 01. 2021 – 07. 2025.

In a special issue of the journal Advanced Engineering Materials (Vol. 27, Issue 8, April 2025), 24 scientific papers with results from these projects were published (open access).

The second BMBF funding call on the topic "Digitalization of Materials Research in Germany" (MaterialDigital 2) was published on March 1, 2021 and also met with great response. From the 77 submitted proposals, 11 collaborative projects with a volume of around 29 million euros were funded within the framework of the funding initiative "MaterialDigital 2" in the period 09. 2022 – 12. 2026.

Another special issue of the journal Advanced Engineering Materials with about 20 scientific papers with results from these projects is currently being edited and is scheduled to be published in summer 2026.

With the third BMBF funding call on the same topic area of May 11, 2023, the focus is on using specific material classes to fully exploit and demonstrate the advantages of digital methodology and the concepts developed so far in the MaterialDigital initiative. Accordingly, the entire life cycle of the material is to be considered. In the funding initiative "MaterialDigital 3", 6 collaborative projects with a volume of approximately 35 million euros are being funded in the period 01. 2025 – 12. 2029.

The PMD-X projects started in 2025 and 2026 are designed for a one-year duration. They are intended to demonstrate prototypically the technical breakthrough from PMD into industrial data spaces. The breakthrough projects create the basis for specifically expanding the MaterialDigital initiative into industry.

MaterialDigital is increasingly evolving from a single initiative into a networked MaterialDigital universe that successively integrates additional BMFTR-funded consortia beyond classic materials and materials engineering.