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RDA-US and NISO to Collaborate on US National PID Strategy

RDA-US and NISO to Collaborate on US National PID Strategy

February 2025

Baltimore, MD and Bloomington, IN | February 4, 2025

The Research Data Alliance-United States (RDA-US) and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have announced their intent to collaborate in the development of an ANSI/NISO standard for a US national Persistent Identifier (PID) strategy. The Working Group formed to achieve this goal will operate within NISO’s standards development structure.

Persistent identifiers, or PIDs, are critical to the infrastructure supporting scholarly communications and open research. PIDs support research discovery and citations, allow users and systems to easily identify authors and institutions and link them to research outputs, and help ensure compliance with a growing number of government and funder mandates advancing open scholarship. The Open Research Funders Group, building on work first addressed in the Research Data Alliance, released the report “Developing a US National PID Strategy” in March 2024. The report highlighted the need for a strategy to build support for PIDs, increase their adoption, and help stakeholders incorporate them into workflows and systems more easily. Engaging with the principles addressed in the report while also further developing other elements, this Working Group will create a standard for advancing PIDs and open scholarship.

The RDA-US office will provide expertise on the benefits of PIDs and shared PID systems while also sharing insights on strategies for implementing PID infrastructure within the broader data community. It will also support further engagement by RDA-US members in the Working Group’s ongoing projects, initiatives, and events to ensure diversity and balance stakeholder engagement. In turn, NISO will administer the Group’s operations and liaise with all members, including representatives and individuals within the RDA-US community.

“RDA-US is pleased to partner with NISO on the development of an ANSI/NISO standard for a US PID strategy”, said Beth Plale, RDA-US Executive Director. RDA-US has endorsed the US-based PID strategy standard precisely because it accounts for the nuances of the US research ecosystem, so we expect this working group to produce a result that is quite helpful as guidance for the community.”

“We are excited to announce this collaboration with RDA-US,” added Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “Their guidance will be invaluable to the Working Group as it progresses this important project supporting open research.”