Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers

Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers Imprint Authored by Sara El-Gebali https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1378-5495 Torsten Kahlert https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3264-5006 Stephanie Hagemann-Wilholt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0474-2410 Contributions by A. Paul Millar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3957-1279 Emanuel Söding https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4467-642X Date of publication December 4, 2025 Version v1.0 DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17743199 License This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Deliverable D1.2 NFDI-wide PID Guidelines About PID4NFDI coordinates persistent identifier services for the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). PID4NFDI is part of and funded throughBase4NFDI. Funded by DFG as part ofNFDI. DFG Grant Number:521453681 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers Contents Abstract 1 1. Introduction 2 2. About the PID4NFDI Coordination Hub 2 3. Why NFDI Consortia Need Persistent Identifiers 2 4. The NFDI Context 3 5. Recommendation: Assigning DataCite DOIs to NFDI Consortia 3 Core Recommendation 3 6. Comparative Considerations 6 ROR (Research Organization Registry) 6 Wikidata 8 RAiD (Research Activity Identifier) 10 7. Summary & Conclusion 10 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers Abstract This document presents the official recommendation of the PID4NFDI Coordination Hub for assigning persistent identifiers (PIDs) to the consortia of Germany’s National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). To ensure consistent, interoperable, and FAIR identification across the NFDI landscape, PID4NFDI recommends the use of DataCite Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) with the resource type “Project” as the authoritative identifiers for NFDI consortia. The proposed approach reflects the specific nature of NFDI consortia as collaborative, project-based alliances without independent legal status, which fall outside the scope of organizational PID systems such as ROR (Research Organization Registry). At the same time, this approach avoids potential conflicts or problems with the German revenue administration. DataCite DOIs offer a mature, transparent, and provenance-controlled infrastructure that aligns with NFDI’s strategic goals for sustainable and machine-actionable metadata management. Complementary PID systems - including ROR for participating institutions, Wikidata IRIs for semantic integration into the Linked Open Data ecosystem, and RAiD (Research Activity Identifier) for tracking project relationships once operational in Germany – are acknowledged as part of a layered and interoperable PID framework for the future. By adopting this model for the time being, NFDI strengthens the discoverability, attribution, and long-term accessibility of its research consortia, ensuring their integration within the global PID ecosystem and alignment with international best practices in research infrastructure governance. 1 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers 1. Introduction This document provides the official recommendation of the PID4NFDI Coordination Hub for assigning persistent identifiers (PIDs) to NFDI consortia. It aims to harmonize current practices and address existing gaps in organizational identification across the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The recommended approach is to use DataCite DOIs with the resource type “Project” to identify NFDI consortia in a sustainable, interoperable, and FAIR manner. 2. About the PID4NFDI Coordination Hub The PID4NFDI Coordination Hub, established under the Base4NFDI-funded project PID4NFDI, serves as the central point of coordination for persistent identifier (PID) activities within the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Its core mandate is to promote consistent and interoperable PID practices across all NFDI consortia, ensuring that research outputs, actors, and infrastructures are globally discoverable and persistently linked. The Hub’s mission is to align PID services, metadata standards, and implementation strategies across domains, creating a shared foundation for interoperability and long-term data integrity. Working in close collaboration with NFDI stakeholders including the project partners DataCite, the Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen (GWDG), the TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, and the Helmholtz Open Science Office, the Coordination Hub develops practical guidance, shared tools, and support mechanisms that ensure alignment between NFDI and the international PID landscape. 3. Why NFDI Consortia Need Persistent Identifiers Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) are a cornerstone of sustainable and FAIR research infrastructures. They ensure that entities, such as datasets, people, organizations, and projects, can be unambiguously referenced, discovered, and connected to their outputs. This would significantly reduce the effort required to collect NFDI-wide output and report on its activities. 2 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers For NFDI consortia, which often operate under multiple names and acronyms, PIDs provide: ● Unique and persistent identification – eliminating confusion caused by inconsistent naming (e.g., Mathematische Forschungsdateninitiative, Mathematical Research Data Initiative, MaRDI, mardi4nfdi). ● Attribution of activities and outputs – linking publications, datasets, and services to their respective consortium. ● Machine-readability and interoperability – enabling integration with DataCite, ORCID, EOSC, OpenAIRE, and related infrastructures. ● Visibility and recognition – improving discoverability and international visibility of NFDI consortia and their outputs. ● Support of the FAIR principles – providing the necessary organizational context for making data and services Findable and Reusable. These benefits align with the strategic goals of NFDI and meet the expectations of funders, infrastructures, and the broader research community. 4. The NFDI Context NFDI is a federated, multi-layered research data infrastructure composed of domain-specific and cross-cutting consortia. Each consortium is a collaborative, project-based alliance of multiple institutions, typically operating under a limited timeframe and without legal personality. This makes them distinct from conventional organizations and thus unsuitable for certain types of organizational PIDs (e.g., ROR). The distributed and dynamic nature of NFDI requires a flexible yet authoritative approach to persistent identification, one that enables clear attribution and long-term resolution without imposing organizational constraints. 5. Recommendation: Assigning DataCite DOIs to NFDI Consortia Core Recommendation The PID4NFDI Coordination Hub recommends assigning DataCite DOIs with resourceTypeGeneral = “Project” to identify NFDI consortia. This approach provides a technically mature, interoperable, and provenance-controlled solution that aligns with both DataCite’s metadata schema and NFDI’s strategic goals for persistent, FAIR, and machine-actionable infrastructure. 3 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers Why DOIs? DataCite DOIs, using the resource type “Project”, offer a robust and immediately deployable option that satisfies current operational needs while remaining compatible with future PID developments. Key advantages include: ● Established infrastructure – DOIs are a proven, globally used standard supported by DataCite’s mature infrastructure and embedded across scholarly communication systems such as ORCID, OpenAIRE, and EOSC. ● Clear cost and service model – Membership pathways are transparent and affordable. For example, DataCite consortium membership via TIB costs approximately 350 EUR/year and allows for the registration for up to 2,000 DOIs. ● Flexibility – DOIs can be assigned not only to entire consortia but also to sub-projects, services, or infrastructure components. Linked PIDs allow hierarchical and relational structures between these entities to be represented explicitly. ● Compatibility – DOIs can later be linked to RAiDs, RORs, or Wikidata IRIs. Multiple identifiers for a single entity can coexist and complement each other, creating a rich, connected PID graph. ● Authoritative landing pages – The NFDI Association already maintains individual pages for each consortium at https://www.nfdi.de/konsortien/. These can serve as persistent DOI landing pages, ensuring long-term accessibility and resolution. The DOI redirect function also allows future flexibility, for example, redirecting to a consortium website or an NFDI-wide service catalogue entry. Provenance and Authority DataCite DOIs provide traceable provenance for every identifier. Each record contains metadata on its publisher, creation date, and update history, ensuring accountability and transparency. Registration privileges are restricted to DataCite members or their delegated organizations. That governance model ensures that the metadata indicating who created the record is accurate and accountable and is different from systems like ROR or Wikidata, where the pathways for creating or modifying records are community-driven but with varying levels of oversight. Wikidata is openly editable by anyone, with decisions emerging from community consensus. ROR, by contrast, operates through a structured review and approval process managed via GitHub issues and overseen by its steering groups. Even so, transparency has limits: for example, in withdrawal cases, the contact details or identity of the requester are not disclosed unless the requester shares them themselves.1 1 See: https://github.com/ror-community/ror-updates/issues/14719#issuecomment-3348859860. 4 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers In short, both systems enable broad participation, but neither provides the strict, verifiable provenance tied to an authorized organization that DOI registration metadata guarantees. Resource Type: Project vs. Award/Grant To accurately describe NFDI consortia and their activities, it is crucial to distinguish between two different types of entities: projects and funding awards. ● Project PIDs describe the research activity itself, the people involved, the work performed, the outputs produced, and the lifecycle of the project. ● Award/Grant PIDs describe the funding decision, the organization providing the money, the program under which it was awarded, and the associated award or grant number. These are separate entities with distinct responsibilities and lifecycles. NFDI consortia are best aligned with the “project” category, as they represent coordinated research activities rather than funding bodies. Therefore, the appropriate DataCite designation is resourceTypeGeneral = “Project”. Funding information, including funder name, funder ROR ID, and grant or award number, should be issued and managed by the funders themselves (e.g., the German Research Foundation, the European Commission). Funders are the authoritative source for award metadata, and they provide this information at the point of origin. Within a project PID, this funding information should appear only as related metadata that links the project to its financial support. DataCite supports registration of both resource type Projects and Awards. Hence, we recommend that funders to use Award DOIs and NFDI consortia to use Project DOIs. NFDI consortia are not funders; they are the funded projects and are therefore best positioned to document project-level details. Implementation Options Several viable routes exist for registering DOIs for NFDI consortia and for NFDI e.V.: 1. Direct DataCite membership – Provides complete autonomy but incurs the highest cost. 2. NFDI e.V. consortium membership – Cost-effective and ensures metadata sovereignty at the association level. Furthermore, a centralized metadata collection effort encourages metadata harmonization and completeness based on standardized reporting requirements from NFDI e.V. 3. Registration via a third-party service provider (e.g., TIB) – Suitable when only a few project DOIs are required. This model demands clear metadata maintenance workflows between the registering authority and project leads. 4. Registration through spokesperson organizations – Recommended. Over 90% of NFDI member institutions are already DataCite members (direct or consortium). 5 Identifying NFDI Consortia with Persistent Identifiers This pathway gives project leaders full control of their consortium metadata, facilitates linking outputs and related research activities, and integrates naturally with institutional data workflows. If option 4 is unavailable, option 2, consortium membership of NFDI e.V., is the next best alternative, ensuring governance continuity and metadata quality across consortia. Harvesting project DOIs into the NFDI-wide metadata catalogue would then require only a lightweight metadata template, with PID4NFDI providing support for its development. 6. Comparative Considerations A balanced approach to PID selection requires understanding the strengths and limitations of each available system. Below is a comparative overview of ROR, Wikidata, and RAiD in the context of identifying NFDI consortia. ROR (Research Organization Registry) Best suited for: Organizations that are recognized, independent entities contributing to research outputs, as defined by ROR’s own inclusion criteria. Current NFDI Status The NFDI Association currently holds a persistent identifier in ROR: https://ror.org/05qj6w324. This record categorizes NFDI as an organization but does not indicate its role as a funder. The funder designation is a recently added category following ROR’s expansion to include funding organizations, a remit previously covered by Crossref’s Funder ID system. At the time of writing, only two NFDI consortia appear as active ROR entries: ● NFDI4DS: https://ror.org/00bb4nn95 Created: 2024-03-13 | Last modified: 2024-12-11 ● MaRDI: https://ror.org/04ncnzm65 Created: 2024-02-13 | Last modified: 2024-12-11 Several other consortia, including DAPHNE4NFDI (https://ror.org/03xrvbe74) and PUNCH4NFDI (https://ror.org/03f6sdf65), were registered in 2024 but subsequently withdrawn. Most of these records share the same creation date (2024-09-14) and last modified date (2024-12-11), as a coordinated withdrawal. Because the NFDI consortia do not constitute independent entities but operate as project structures, the use of ROR IDs already raised concerns regarding the potential creation of unintended legal or tax-related 6