The safe and reliable performance of fusion and fission plants depends on the choice of suitable materials and an assessment of long-term materials degradation. These materials are degraded by their exposure to extreme conditions; it is necessary, therefore, to address the issue of long-term damage evolution of materials under service exposure in advanced plants. The empirical approach to the study of structural materials and fuels is reaching its limit when used to define and extrapolate new materials, new environments, or new operating conditions due to a lack of knowledge of the basic principles and mechanisms present. Materials designed for future Gen IV systems require significant innovation for the new environments that the materials will be exposed to. Thus, it is a challenge to understand the materials more precisely and to go far beyond the current empirical design methodology. Breakthrough technology is being achieved with the incorporation in design codes of a fundamental understanding of the properties of materials. This paper discusses the multi-scale, multicode computations and multi-dimensional modelling undertaken to understand the mechanical properties of these materials. Such an approach is envisaged to probe beyond currently possible approaches to become a predictive tool in estimating the mechanical properties and lifetimes of materials.