Open Persistent Identifiers: The Building Blocks of Sustainable Scholarly Infrastructure

Open persistent identifiers as the building blocks of sustainable scholarly infrastructure is discussed. Persistent identifiers in the scholarly communication context serve as stable, long-lasting unique references to core components of the research enterprise. These components include but are not limited to publications and other research outputs, researchers and contributors, institutions and facilities, instruments and materials, funders, and grants and awards PIDs help to provide long-term unambiguous identification of and access to research (and information about research). This is useful in today's dynamic and diffuse research landscape: for example, a publication's URL is likely to change over time, multiple researchers have the same name, and researchers' affiliated institutions or funding organizations might be written in multiple ways across different outlets.