National PID Strategies Interest Group rev-002

The RDA National PID Strategies Working Group (WG) was endorsed by RDA on 10 December 2021 to explore how Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) form part of national policy and research infrastructure implementation frameworks. The Group recognised that there are systemic and network benefits from widespread and consistent PID adoption, and funders, government agencies, and national research communities have created PID consortia or policies (including mandates) in pursuit of these benefits. The Working Group concludes on 10 June 2023 yet interest in the topic of the WG is higher than ever with national PID strategies on the rise and in rapid development. We therefore propose a National PID Strategies Interest Group to continue and further develop the active RDA community engagement in the topic. The benefits of transitioning from an RDA WG to an RDA IG include continuing to facilitate much needed discussion and alignment between the strategies, refinement of the value proposition and sharing practical development pathways to a national PID strategy.

An ambitious goal of the WG was to map common activities across national agencies/efforts and produce a guide to help others – irrespective of geographical region – to follow a ‘blueprint’ to define their national PID strategy. However, through the course of the 18 months of the WG (December  2021 – June 2023), it became clear that:

1. The development of national PID strategies is a relatively new phenomenon and many countries are in the very early stages. In fact, many have more of a national approach that are seeking to transform into a strategy.
2. Moreover, all national PID strategies are currently in development and therefore subject to a high degree of change. During the course of the WG, nine case studies were collected and several of these needed to be updated prior to the Group’s final output due to changes that had taken place in those countries.
3. International PID providers including ORCID and DataCite have recently begun to actively engage with national PID strategies and the RDA National PID Strategies WG has been a focal point for this engagement.

Clearly there is greater demand than ever for national PID strategy and an international umbrella under the auspices of the RDA to enable coordination, alignment and community discussion.

The RDA National PID Strategies WG has found that:

• National PID Strategies are on the rise
• There is no single ‘cookie cutter’ approach to developing a national PID strategy
• Critical components include:
  • A clear value proposition with use cases
  • A group or organisation that is responsible for driving strategy development
  • An open, inclusive, iterative process that involves all stakeholders
  • An accompanying roadmap that outlines practical steps for implementation
• Engagement between national PID strategies and PID providers is important for success

The WG has filled a need in the international data community to explore use cases and value propositions, discuss and learn from one another, engage with international PID providers and align national approaches. The RDA National PID Strategies WG has produced a comparison guide and checklist that can be used when developing a national PID strategy and there is demand to continue to develop the guide, collect new and updated use cases and amend the checklist in line with the rapid evolution of national PID strategies.

Read the full National PID Strategies IG Charter for further detail on the objectives, milestones, etc.

RDA20Interest20Group20Charter20-20National20PID20Strategies20IG.docx