The COVID pandemic has highlighted and amplified shortcomings as well as strengths of modern society: its vulnerabilities to disruption of a world with global interactions and supply chains on the one hand and its ability to adapt quickly and offer solutions in response to the challenge on the other hand. The pandemic has also reinforced the urgency and desire to address sustainability challenges and put even greater emphasis on the actions outlined e.g. in the European Green Deal.

Individuals and organisations have come to realise the benefits and opportunities of a more digitally connected and digitally driven world, including the ability to carry out substantial work for example in R&D by means of a computational, model‐based approach.

In all of these aspects, materials and our ability to understand and utilise their behaviour play a central role. In its statement, EMMC elaborates some key points that underline the strategic importance of materials modelling and digitalisation as key enablers of solutions to societal challenges in European post‐COVID society.