Imaging-PHD: Empowering data reuse and reproducibility through microscopy-community defined Persistent Hardware Descriptors

Capturing the precise hardware configuration of an instrument that has generated scientific
data is critical to understanding, reproducing, and sharing the results. Though registries exist to provide
unique identifiers for instrument models (e.g., RRID) and individual instruments themselves (e.g.,
PIDINST), no current method exists to capture the hardware configuration of an instrument with sufficient
detail to promote data quality, reproducibility, and FAIR sharing. This proposal introduces Persistent
Hardware Descriptors (PHDs), specifically in light-microscopy, to solve the problem of inadequate
metadata capture and storage, which hinders research reproducibility, data integrity, and cross-disciplinary
collaboration. By providing a standardized framework for capturing this essential information, the project
enhances the reliability of scientific results, makes advanced technologies more accessible, and supports
long-term data preservation, ultimately advancing scientific research practices. Specifically, Imaging-PHD
will (1) establish a vendor-friendly framework for describing hardware configurations that can be used in
publications associated with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), (2) create a collaborative space where
configurations can be reviewed and edited before being published, including a user-friendly Graphical User Interface
(GUI) for authoring microscopy configurations when vendor software does not create them
automatically, and (3) launch a coordinated outreach effort to educate vendors and users, provide training
for utilizing the resulting tools effectively, and generate a corpus of hardware descriptions to drive
improvements in quality control and enable community-wide LLM approaches through high-quality
training data. All components of this proposal are designed to be interoperable and expandable for
implementation at multiple other sites and within various scientific disciplines.