Why PID Implementation Is Harder Than You Think
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Do you sometimes feel like PID adoption should be easier than it actually is? You are not alone. In this session you will hear a first-hand account of what it really takes to embed persistent identifiers across a large, heterogeneous research infrastructure – Germany's National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), spanning dozens of institutions and disciplines. PIDs are widely recognised as a key enabler for FAIR RDM. But between that recognition and actual adoption lies a significant implementation gap: administrative hurdles, domain-specific vocabularies, fragmented technical systems, and a mismatch between emerging topic hype and foundational groundwork. Not all efforts succeed, and not all stakeholders are receptive – though occasionally an intervention makes an unexpected difference. After this session, you will recognise the most common barriers to PID adoption in complex multi-stakeholder environments, have a realistic picture of implementation timelines, and understand why frustration tolerance is a genuine project competency.
Authors: Kahlert, Torsten, Vierkant, Paul
Institution: DataCite
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
OpenAlex ID: W7225408785