Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are unique alpha-numeric codes that positively identify entities such as people, places, and things. In addition, they are connected to registries of information about those entities, known as metadata, that enable robust linking to and between those entities. This establishes provenance and attribution, as specified by the FAIR data principles. PIDs contribute to research integrity and reproducibility by precisely identifying the resources used to conduct research and the outputs that result from it. The ability to link research activities to their inputs and outputs bolsters research integrity and facilitates the gathering of evidence for improved strategic decision-making at the individual, institutional, and national levels.

The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and the Australian Access Federation (AAF) commissioned the MoreBrains Cooperative to undertake an analysis of the incentives for adoption of persistent identifiers (PIDs) by the Australian research sector. The three main benefits of PIDs are:

• Metadata reuse: PID registries act as both repositories for metadata, and as services that can provide programmatic access to it, saving the time and effort of rekeying it, and improving accuracy.
• Automation: The presence of a PID in a system or a metadata record can act as a trigger for an action. The value of automation can go beyond time saved to include more complete information and more timely information processing.
• Aggregation and analysis: At the institutional or national scale, aggregating information about entities and the relationships between them enables strategic analysis, benchmarking, the plotting of trends, and other insights.

This report sets out the benefits of PIDs primarily through the first of these lenses: metadata reuse. This is the most amenable to quantification, as data is available about the number of specific entities in the Australian research system (such as the number of researchers, institutions, publications, and grants).