Persistent identifier (PID) policy

Effective as of October 24 2025

Purpose

CSC PID Policy is a sub-policy to enforce CSC Data Policy.

To promote Open Science CSC is committed to adhere to the FAIR principles, to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. A key FAIR principle is to ensure that (Meta)data are assigned globally unique and persistent identifiers. As stated in the National Roadmap for Persistent Identifiers for Finland, with well-managed persistent identifiers (PIDs), an object is always discoverable, unambiguously identifiable, and traceable. PIDs are critical for science because they provide globally recognized, reliable ways to uniquely identify and connect key research entities, such as researchers, funders, organizations, articles, datasets, software, and samples, thereby increasing the visibility and impact of research. PIDs also play a vital role in ensuring interoperability across public information management and cultural heritage services.

This policy aims to promote the use of good PID practices to support the FAIR principles and ensure interoperability within CSC, as well as for its customers, stakeholders, and partners.

The CSC PID Policy is developed and maintained in alignment with the CSC strategy. The EOSC PID Policy, the National PID Roadmap and the ongoing National PID Strategy work, along with various standards and handbooks of different identifiers, serve as key references.

Principles

This PID policy communicates what best PID management practices mean to us at CSC, and how the usage of PIDs supports FAIR principles in data management:

We recommend referring to an object equipped with a PID in order to avoid broken links.
We are committed to adhere to the FAIR principles, and to assign globally unique, persistent and resolvable identifiers to the (meta)data and key publications.
We support our customers in complying with the FAIR principles and using PIDs in research infrastructures.

We, CSC as an organisation and our staff have different roles and responsibilities related to PIDs. We use PIDs as PID End Users, assign PIDs as PID Owners, and maintain entities and their PIDs as PID Managers.

The following principles are set in this policy:

1. If an object has an identifier, use it

We use PID as a method of referring to its assigned entity, when available, and promote using PIDs instead of their URL counterpart in links and in references.

2. All datasets and key publications have appropriate identifiers

We publish datasets and key publications in repositories and publication platforms equipped with PIDs, if these objects are intended for long-term use.
We use and promote widespread and established PIDs whenever appropriate (such as DOI, URN, ORCID, RoR, RaID, Handle etc).
We aim to ensure that minting and utilizing identifiers is easy for data and metadata providers and supports machine actionable functionalities of PIDs.

3. No identifier is reused in its context

We do not re-assign or delete PIDs. In case an entity being identified is deleted or ceases to exist, we publish a tombstone information for it.

4. Use and management of identifiers is documented

We take responsibility as a PID Manager and documents the use of PIDs.

5. Identifiers comply to documented standards and guidelines

We follow dedicated guidelines and recommendations of different PIDs, listed in References.

6. Identifiers have minimal semantic meaning and a strictly defined structure

We generate new sub-prefixes for e.g. different domains, projects or data types with consideration and avoid semantics in PID strings.

7. Human readable identifiers are user friendly

We avoid long and cryptic PID strings in cases where PIDs likely will be used as part of human readable metadata, documentation or references, but future scaling needs are taken into account.

8. Machine actionability of PIDs is supported

We improve machine actionability of PIDs in our services with good metadata practices and interoperable functionalities.

9. Policies for object versioning are documented

We take into account that both the object itself as well as the access to an object and/or its metadata may vary during the research data lifecycle.

Terminology

Terminology of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) on Finnish Interoperability Platform.