In this episode, we’re diving into a topic that’s gaining momentum across the research data community—assigning persistent identifiers, or PIDs, to instruments and facilities. As the research ecosystem continues to push toward greater transparency, reproducibility, and FAIR practices, recognizing the role of the tools and spaces where research happens has become increasingly important. But assigning PIDs to instruments and facilities isn’t just about metadata—it’s about creating connections across systems, surfacing valuable research infrastructure, and ensuring proper attribution.

Today, we’re speaking with three representatives from the NSF-funded FAIR Instruments and Facilities Research Coordination Network, Matthew Mayernik, Andrew Johnson, and Claudius Mundoma to hear insights from their FAIR facilities and instruments recent workshops, and explore how data professionals can serve as connectors and translators across stakeholder groups. 

Matt Mayernik is a Project Scientist and Deputy Library Director at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. His work is focused on research and service development related to scientific data curation and digital scholarship topics, including persistent identifiers, metadata, and institutional repositories. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Data Science Journal.

Andrew Johnson is Associate Faculty Director for Data and Scholarly Communication Services in the University Libraries and Initiative Director for Research Data Management and Repositories in the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder). His work includes overseeing research data management and curation efforts, open access publishing initiatives, and overall strategy for the CU Scholar open access repository. His research interests focus on emerging services and infrastructure for research data management and curation, open access publishing, and open science, particularly with regard to interdisciplinary and highly collaborative research. Johnson is Principal Investigator for the CU Boulder award that is part of the FAIR Facilities and Instruments collaborative NSF FAIR Open Science Research Coordination Network (FAIROS RCN) project.

Claudius Mundoma is the Director of Shared Instrumentation Facilities in the Office of Vice Provost and Dean of Research at Stanford University. He leads the strategy implementation and evaluation of the Shared Research Platforms initiative as well as oversee planning of future activities that elevate Stanford's shared facilities to the next level. Among many core duties, - collaborate with shared facilities leadership to address strategic and operational issues that impact the community, and support development of new services to advance Stanford’s research and education missions. Previously, led the Core Facilities and Shared Instrumentation team as the inaugural Director in the Research and Innovation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Before that, directed the Physical Biochemistry Facility in the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University for nearly two decades.Resources Mentioned:https://ncar.github.io/FAIR-Facilities-Instruments/“Persistent Identifiers for Instruments and Facilities: Current State, Challenges, and Opportunities.” Journal of eScience Librarianship 13 (3): e964. https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.964.