NTK to host the international community of persistent identifier experts during the PIDfest conference

The National Library of Technology (NTK) will host the PIDfest international conference on persistent identifiers from 11 to 13 June 2024. The event aims to bring together persistent identifier experts, providers and users from around the world to discuss current trends and practical challenges in the use of identifiers to facilitate information and administrative processes in science communication.

Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are the cornerstones of communicating research results in today’s digital environment. They enable the unambiguous and persistent identification of a wide variety of entities (researchers, articles, datasets and other digital objects, research organisations, funders, grants, projects and many others). PIDs ensure that information about these entities is accessible, easily referenced and interlinked. Last year, the National Centre for Persistent Identifiers was established within the CARDS project in the NTK, providing methodological and financial support for the implementation of PIDs to dozens of Czech research organisations.

Director of NTK Ing. Martin Svoboda says: “As the director of NTK I am proud that our library will host this international conference and will bring to the Czech Republic a unique world-class expertise in a field that may not be so well known to the public, but is an integral part of a quality infrastructure for science, research and innovation. The great interest in attending the conference also shows us that we have correctly gauged the demand from the persistent identifier community for an event like this.”

The PIDfest conference is organised by NTK in collaboration with the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), whose mission is to support Australian research and innovation by building a world-class infrastructure for data resources.

“ARDC is proud to co-host PIDfest 2024 with NTK,” says Natasha Simons, National Coordination Director at Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and a member of the conference organising committee. “This event is an excellent opportunity to bring the global community together to discuss all aspects of PIDs and their use to support research, innovation and impact. We anticipate exciting, lively discussions with our colleagues from around the world that will strengthen Australia’s National PIDs Strategy led by ARDC and improve the infrastructure services we provide for PIDs.” ARDC Director Natasha Simons adds.

Approximately 180 experts from around the world and the Czech Republic, including representatives of leading providers of persistent identifiers such as ORCID (identifier for researchers), DOI (identifier for articles, datasets and other research results), ROR (identifier for research organizations), ISSN (identifier for journals) or RAiD (emerging identifier of research activities), will attend the conference in person.

Other participants will come from organisations that, like NTK, support the national implementation of PIDs, such as the Dutch association SURF, the UK infrastructure Jisc, the Finnish CSC – IT Centre for Science, the Japanese Science and Technology Agency and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

Representatives of other prestigious research organizations that implement PIDs in their activities will also participate.

In addition to the lectures, the PIDfest conference program leaves a large part of the three-day conference for interactive activities that allow for discussions among participants and the resolution of specific practical issues in the use of PIDs.

All information is available on the conference website www.pidfest.org

PIDfest is sponsored by Digital Science, ORCID, and the Open Science Framework.