Soft materials, such as hydrogels and certain elastomers, exhibit remarkable mechanical properties, including the ability to undergo extremely large deformations - up to several hundred percent - before failure. These unique characteristics enable emerging cutting-edge applications in the fields of soft robotics and tissue engineering, driving a significant surge in research efforts devoted to unraveling the complex mechanical behavior of these extraordinary materials. These studies span a wide range of phenomena, from bulk inelastic effects to the intricate mechanics of fracture in soft solids. This mini-symposium aims to provide a platform to discuss recent advances and current challenges concerning the mechanical response of soft materials, with emphasis on both experimental and computational modeling approaches. Topics of interest to the mini-symposium include but are not limited to the following: • Development of constitutive models capable of accurately capturing bulk inelastic effects, such as viscoelasticity and viscoplasticity • Modeling of fracture including crack propagation as well as crack nucleation and their interaction with bulk inelastic effects - sharp crack modeling approaches (e.g., XFEM), diffuse crack/damage models (e.g., phase-field methods, gradient damage models), etc. • Robust numerical schemes for handling large deformations, particularly in cases involving fracture or instability-causing phenomena such as wrinkling • Machine learning or data-based methods to enhance the fidelity and/or computational efficiency of conventional phenomenological continuum modeling approaches • Novel experimental methods focused on probing the multi-faceted mechanical response of soft solids – including both bulk inelastic and fracture phenomena; e.g. – advanced-imaging techniques, in-situ experiments under complex loading conditions etc. This mini-symposium is being organized under the aegis of the SoftFrac project funded by the European Research Council. For further details, kindly visit: www.softfrac.research.fau.eu