National Persistent Identifier Roadmap and Strategy

On 25 October 2024, NORF launched Ireland’s National Persistent Identifier (PID) Strategy Interoperability, Openness, and Impact – Recommendations and Roadmap for an Irish National PID Strategy. Read about the launch event and watch it back on Vimeo

The project to deliver this roadmap was initiated in response to Ireland’s National Action Plan for Open Research 2022-2030 which outlines objectives and actions for the next chapter in Ireland’s transition to open research. Implementation of the National Action Plan for Open Research is being overseen by NORF and delivered under Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy. Included in the National Action Plan for Open Research are actions to: invest in persistent identifier infrastructure; support the Irish Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) consortium; and develop a roadmap, in line with international best practice, to boost the adoption of PIDs.

This page details how the project developed over the period of October 2023 to October 2024, including how to engage as a stakeholder in the Irish research community.

DOI: 10.7486/DRI.sn00qt29n

PIDs are a cornerstone of a modern, digital research system. They uniquely identify entities involved in research, such as grant awards, researchers, instruments, datasets, or publications, and enable structured information about those entities to be shared.

The National PID Strategy and Roadmap presents 15 key recommendations and detailed actions aimed at establishing a more efficient, transparent, and open research ecosystem in Ireland, spanning the period until 2030. The objective is to enable seamless information flow between systems and organisations, reduce bureaucratic burdens, and enhance research transparency and integrity. PIDs underpin this vision as they act as critical bridges between entities.

The Roadmap was prepared by NORF and the NORF PID Task Force, in consultation with the scholarly communications consultants MoreBrains Cooperative.

Members of the PIDs Task Force included:

• Lisa Griffith, Director at the Digital Repository of Ireland
• Deirdre Quinn, Senior Manager – Research and Research Policy at the Higher Education Authority
• Susan Reilly, Director at Irish Research eLibrary (IReL)
• Frances Madden, Assistant Head of Library Services: Research Services at TU Dublin
• Beth Knazook, Project Manager at the Digital Repository of Ireland
• Cillian Joy, Head of Open and Digital Research at the University of Galway
• Catherine Ferris, Open Scholarship Officer at Irish Research eLibrary (IReL)Jenny O’ Neill, Research Engagement Officer at HEAnet.

From 11 November – 1 December 2023, we conducted a community survey of key stakeholder groups from across the Irish research ecosystem, including some overseas organisations that serve the community, in order to gauge their current understanding of and
engagement with PID usage. The survey questions were developed and set up (as a Google form) by the MoreBrains team, in consultation
with NORF, and the survey was jointly deployed. It was promoted directly to 52 Irish research organisations, as well as on social media, at Ireland’s National Open Research Festival (NORFest), and via the NORF newsletter. We also encouraged respondents to invite their colleagues to complete the survey. We were grateful to have received responses from multiple organisations with key stakeholder groups from across the Irish research ecosystem, including some overseas organisations that serve the community. MoreBrains completed the analysis and incorporated feedback from the core group.

Events such as focus groups, a workshop and webinars were organised to engage stakeholders.

Community consultation was conducted, and is reviewed in this presentation; Irish PID community consultation webinar

Based on this, three Irish PID strategy briefing documents for key stakeholder groups were produced:

• Institutional Leads, DOI 10.7486/DRI.r4958f673; Irish PID_Institutional leaders
• Policy Makers, DOI 10.7486/DRI.rb69b735k-1; Irish PID_Policy Makers and funders
• Researchers and Research Managers, DOI 10.7486/DRI.rf56c419f-1; Irish PID_Researchers and research managers

In addition to the recommendations and roadmap, a cost-benefit analysis of PID adoption in Ireland was also conducted: Efficiency and insight: a cost-benefit analysis for a central service to support persistent identifier implementation in Ireland. It was published in May 2024. This analysis shows that the cost of investing in a central support service, and of implementing PIDs in 25 publicly-funded, research-performing Irish institutions, would be more than outweighed by the time and cost savings generated by metadata re-use. The estimated efficiency gain is equivalent to more than 4,000 days of staff time savings each year, or nearly €1.8M in staff salary and overhead.

DOI 10.7486/DRI.nz80kt123