In May, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) hosted a webinar focused on the latest global developments of the Research Activity Identifier (RAiD).
The management and development of the RAiD identifier will now be overseen by the RAiD Operating Alliance. This alliance is a collaborative effort between ARDC (Australia), SURF (Netherlands), the San Diego Supercomputer Center (USA), and the Digital Research Alliance (Canada). The alliance members will share responsibility for the technological development and long-term sustainability of the system.
What was discussed during the webinars?
Europe, Middle East, and Africa
- Development: the Dutch organization SURF will launch a national registration agency in Q3 2026, with plans to expand the service further into Europe in 2027. Pilot testing with Dutch universities, institutes, and funders highlighted the varying needs of researchers, data stewards, and funders.
- Use cases: The ENACT project (University of Westminster) is testing RAiD for non-traditional research outputs (such as works in non-standard formats like videos, audio recordings, or journals). Additionally, the RSpace tool can now automatically record data exports from research activities directly into a RAiD record.
Asia Pacific
- Development: The ARDC RAiD service in Australia and New Zealand currently supports 11 organizations across 19 service points. It has recently integrated ORCID, which will allow researchers to automatically link and write RAiD records to their ORCID profiles.
- Use cases: Two use cases were presented: the Raine Study will use RAiD to consolidate its network of partner organizations and research outputs; and AuScope plans to launch a RAiD register for national geoscience infrastructure by mid-2027.
Americas
- Development: The US RAiD Pilot project currently records 115 expressions of interest. The Digital Research Alliance of Canada presented its three-year national project, with an official launch planned for April 2028.
- Use cases: The University of Texas at Austin is exploring options for integrating RAiD into its repository, and their presentation highlighted both the opportunities and limitations of this solution. Native RAiD metadata support from the Dataverse platform is currently still under development.
Resource: https://www.raid.org/news-events/news/2026-05-gcm-recap