Globally unique, persistent, and resolvable identifiers (PIDs) are now an essential component of the modern research ecosystem and are used for many types of digital objects and research artefacts including data, software, samples, and instruments. The International Geo Sample Number (IGSN) is a specialized PID for physical samples that ensures unambiguous citation and tracking of these samples and links them to data and publications. Originally developed for the Earth Sciences, the IGSN has evolved into an international PID system and is increasingly adopted by other disciplines that need to refer to physical samples. The growing number and range of stakeholders worldwide include, but are not limited to, researchers, collection curators, and data managers.
To date, nearly 6.9 million samples have been registered with IGSN. As the audience expands and the adoption rate accelerates, the governance and business models of the system need to be reassessed to support this growth. The IGSN 2040 project, funded in 2018 by an award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has enabled the participation of an international group of experts, from multiple domains, to re-design and improve the existing organization and technical architecture of the IGSN. The goal is to be able to respond to and support, in a sustainable manner, the rapidly growing demands of an increasingly multi-disciplinary samples user community in a landscape of maturing research data infrastructures.
The IGSN 2040 team invites the ESIP community to participate in an open forum to explore solutions for a scalable and sustainable future of the IGSN. This discussion will begin broad addressing essential criteria for trustworthiness and sustainability for PIDs in the rapidly growing global unique, persistent, and resolvable identifier (UPRI) ecosystem, and narrow to focus on the optimal organizational foundations needed to ensure longevity, scalability and effective governance of the IGSN. The results of this discussion will inform the work of the IGSN 2040 Governance Steering Committee Meeting, which is colocated with the 2019 ESIP Summer meeting.
Session recording is here.
