All around the world, synthesis recipes are being developed and collected by individual scientists. These recipes are often documented in handwritten lab notebooks and the log files created by synthesis instruments are lost or discarded, which makes the application of FAIR data principles impossible.

FAIRmat Area A aims at making sample synthesis reproducible by finding hidden synthesis parameters, accelerate the development of novel materials by devising synthesis recipes, and make characterization data of synthesized materials assessable. To achieve these aims we have set three main goals:

• Establish metadata (standards), ontologies, and tools.
• Harmonize metadata schema of synthesis and  experimental characterization.
• Promote the computer-aided development of synthesis  recipes, interweaving experiment and theory.