The PRovenance Information for MAterials science (PRIMA) Thesaurus is a SKOS-based FAIR vocabulary to describe the mid-level provenance information of entities and data collected in experimental and computational Studies, and then archived for further data discovery and data sharing.

The main purpose of the PRIMA Thesaurus is to provide a persistent set of citable concepts to improve data findability (e.g., by facilitating the implementation of search engines) as well as data reusability, interoperability, and exchange (e.g., supporting the creation of metadata schemas). Being a mid-level vocabulary, it bridges the gap between the high-level interoperable schemas (like Dublin Core or DataCite) and the application-level ontologies. New domain vocabularies or ontologies can also be built extending the PRIMA Thesaurus itself.

It is the outcome of the collaboration between JL-MDMC, NFFA-Europe research infrastructure (Nanoscience Foundries and Fine Analysis), and (from 2022) the consortium NFDI-MatWerk
(Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur für Materialwissenschaft & Werkstofftechnik) of the German National Research Data Infrastructure.

The definitions of terms have been designed keeping a balance between the specific applications of JL-MDMC and the definitions available in other projects. 

 The PRIMA Thesaurus is intended to be a living document, subject to updates if required by the community. For any inquiries, please contact Dr. Rossella Aversa.

Main contributors: R. Aversa, A. Boubnov, D. DeAngelis, C. Eschke, S. Irvine, R. Joseph, M. Kabbe, N. MacKinnon, I. Modolo, M. Panighel, R. Thelen, D. Valentinis