Research Funders: as both beneficiaries and enablers of change, how can we work together to help shape the PID ecosystem?

Among research funders, there is increasing interest in a more in depth understanding of both the effects of funded research projects and the performance of funding instruments. Although research funding organisations collect a lot of information about research projects they fund, it is often difficult to re-use this information for strategic decision making. Challenges in collecting good quality, reusable data are multiple and intertwined. They include researchers failing to register their outputs on funders’ systems, name ambiguities of both people and institutions, and the use of a wide range of metadata practices. Together, these information challenges undermine funders’ ability to systematically assess the outcomes of funded research. In this session, we present a ‘holistic’ PID strategy to improve the Dutch Research Council’s (NWO) capacity to analyze the effects of the research it funds. In this strategy, developed together with SURF (Cooperative for ICT in Dutch education and research), we propose implementation of persistent identifiers in NWO’s grant and reporting workflows, together with recommendations for national and international stakeholder engagement. Given the international nature of research and associated infrastructures, it is particularly important to ensure that national efforts are also well coordinated internationally. As funders have occupied attention space at PIDapalooza since its inception, our aim is to join this tradition and call on PID-engaged and PID-curious funders to join our session. We invite comment and critique on the NWO PID strategy, and ideas about ways in which funders can work together to help shape the PID ecosystem