Community-specific (and stakeholder category-specific) perspectives on the EOSC PID architecture and the EOSC PID policy

Relevance

This report is vital for improving the EOSC PID architecture and PID policy, addressing gaps, and enhancing the interoperability and usability of persistent identifiers across the European research infrastructure landscape.

Scope

This deliverable gathers community-specific and stakeholder-specific perspectives on the EOSC PID architecture and PID policy. It targets researchers, organisations, and policymakers to enhance PID practices and policies within the EOSC framework.

Main highlights

The EOSC-A PID Policy and Implementation Task Force established a focus group to collect community-specific perspectives on EOSC PID architecture and PID policy. A structured feedback process was implemented, involving surveys and consultations with key project members. The survey, distributed over three months, garnered 49 responses from 11 disciplines. Key findings include:

• 3% of respondents provide PID services, while 89.6% use these services.
• General consensus on the importance of SRIA priorities.
• Underlining that technical complexity hinders full comprehension.
• Emphasis on standardisation, affordability, and integration of widely used PID services.
• Recognition of the need for machine-actionable PIDs and seamless integration with existing systems.
• Noted variability in the maturity and usage of PIDs across different entities like publications, researchers, datasets, and institutions.

Overall, the report highlights the need for further community input to address inconclusive survey results and stresses the importance of interoperability, sustainability, and the adoption of standardised PIDs in EOSC.

Key recommendations

The task force’s key recommendations are:

• Leverage existing infrastructure: Integrate widely adopted, open PID services used across disciplines and domains to enhance the EOSC framework.
• Interoperability pathway: Define clear pathways for interoperability within the EOSC framework to ensure seamless integration of PID services.
• Sustainability plans: Ensure robust, long-term sustainability plans for PID services, aligning with EOSC’s sustainability objectives and ensuring community-owned, openly available metadata
• Further insight collection: Continue gathering community feedback to understand the inconclusiveness in current survey results.
• Project collaboration: Engage with related projects to explore interoperable services for resolution and PID metadata creation, particularly for emerging resource types.
• Metrics development: Develop comprehensive metrics to assess PID services based on adoption, ease of use, and interoperability across infrastructures.

The recommendations underscore the importance of reducing technical barriers, enhancing interoperability, and promoting sustainable practices within the EOSC PID ecosystem.