Lab of the Future will help prepare researchers, research institutions and companies to take the next step in data-based research and development. Labs of the Future should be prepared to employ a large variety of experimental modalities generating high-quality data that underscore informed conclusions. Such equipment ranges from tabletop custom-made equipment over automatized robotics-based systems to large-scale international facilities. In the Lab of the Future efforts will be devoted to using this variety of equipment in a well-orchestrated manner in order to optimally perform data-based exploration and characterization, leading to an understanding of underlying mechanisms and to informed conclusions. This will be highly important for meeting future environmental or health-related challenges.

The biggest challenge regards the production and sharing of high-quality data. The Lab of the Future will provide a plethora of equipment, from table equipment to international large-scale shared facilities, and will produce vast amounts of high-quality data. In order to advance science and technology development and to help overcome global crises as pandemics and climate change, it is crucial that high-quality data is produced and shared between Labs of the Future and across borders in a responsible manner. This is by no means trivial and includes development of novel technologies as well as making such data interoperable, accessible, and reusable, invoking the FAIR principles.

Already today we are experiencing a data explosion - and, thanks to novel experimental platforms and an increased used of robotics, this data explosion will accelerate in the years to come. In 5 years it is likely we have established a set of international codes of conduct and procedures for trustful and transparent data sharing, a necessary step to enable data sharing and collaboration. Also, within 5 years it is likely that global data bases have been established, these being based on a shared code of conduct and implementing FAIR principles. Ten years from now, the typical researcher, and potentially even the typical citizen, will have well-managed access to global data bases, thus significantly expanding the data-base upon which conclusions are drawn. This will cause the researcher to be less attached to a single Lab of the Future, will provide better use of human resources and give a much better basis for performing informed decisions and solve global crises than we have today.