2026-10-28 –, LUMC06
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.
Do you sometimes feel like the adoption of persistent identifiers (PIDs) should be easier than it actually is? You are not alone. In this session, you will learn what it really takes to embed persistent identifiers across a large, heterogeneous research infrastructure – Germany's National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), spanning dozens of consortia, disciplines, and institutions.
PIDs are widely recognised as a key enabler for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) research data management. But between that recognition and actual adoption lies a significant implementation gap: administrative and procedural hurdles, domain-specific vocabularies that make cross-community communication genuinely difficult, fragmented technical systems, and a persistent mismatch between the attention given to emerging topics and the foundational groundwork that still needs to be done. This experience is shared by many practitioners, but is rarely the focus of conference presentations.
This session draws on concrete tasks and materials – training resources, documentation, and community outreach – to show where the friction lies and evaluates the effectiveness of various strategic approaches. A highlight of the presentation features an unexpected success story: a case where targeted intervention, strategic connections, and timely knowledge transfer propelled a use-case partner over a critical hurdle against all odds. Not all efforts have that outcome, and not all stakeholders are receptive.
After this session, you will:
• recognise the most common structural and cultural barriers to PID adoption in complex multi-stakeholder environments;
• have a more realistic picture of what PID adoption timelines can look like, as well as the impact that targeted interventions can have.
• understand why frustration tolerance is, genuinely, a project competency in this work.
Torsten works at the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) in Hannover and is a project team member of PID4NFDI, a Basic Service within Germany's National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) focused on persistent identifiers. He holds a PhD in History of Science from Humboldt University of Berlin and has worked across a range of research and research data management projects. His current work within PID4NFDI spans training material development, tool development, community outreach, and documentation, with a particular focus on supporting research communities in understanding and adopting PIDs.
Since 2020, Paul has served as DataCite’s outreach manager. In addition to his work in communications, he engages with the PID Network Germany project. Before joining DataCite, Paul was employed at the Helmholtz Open Science Office and various universities, where he contributed to the development of publication and data repositories. Paul holds an M.A. in North American Studies, Italian, and ethnology. As a committed advocate for Open Research, Paul aims to promote the concept of openness in scholarly communication.