Persistent Identifiers (PIDs)
The Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (DOE OSTI) offers persistent identifier (PID) services to the DOE community and the US Government. A PID is a digital identifier that is globally unique, persistent, machine resolvable, has an associated metadata schema, identifies an entity, and is frequently used to disambiguate between entities.
Benefits of Using PIDs
Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are a key way to make sure research components are connected and understandable. PIDs can be associated with research outputs such as articles, data, and software, as well as people, organizations, and funding. PIDs ensure that research components are easy to find and cite, support linking, enable interoperability, and promote FAIR practices.
Impact of Using PIDs
As more organizations begin connecting research components using persistent identifiers (PIDs), individual researchers, research-conducting organizations, and funding organizations can better understand the impact of their work. One example is to explore the influence of a journal article by looking at citations over time.



