On the road towards a PID strategy for Germany

Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are central to FAIR research data management and have become an essential component of applications and services. Also, PID-related metadata are central to the FAIRness of research resources and support their reusability and the reproducibility of research. However, with the growing importance of PIDs in everyday research and more and more also in cultural contexts, the requirements for their efficient usability are also increasing. At the same time, users are confronted with a great variety of very different PID systems and implementation possibilities.

The DFG funded project “PID Network Germany” therefore aims to establish a network of stakeholders around the persistent identification of people, organisations, and resources in the field of digital communication in science and culture, which promotes the dissemination and connection of PID systems in Germany. The focus is also on identifying needs and optimization potential for existing PID systems and embedding them in international knowledge graphs. The project findings should lead to recommendations in the order to create a national PID roadmap for Germany.

The PID Network Germany complements the endeavor of “PID4NFDI” in particular on the policy level and both projects agreed to closely collaborate. PID4NFDI is a proposal for the Initialization Phase of Base4NFDI, which is currently under review for funding. The central objective of PID4NFDI is to consolidate and evolve the PID service landscape within NFDI at all levels: technical, organisational, methodological, and in communication.