Belnet’s PID service offers institutions a way to ensure durable, global, and flexible identification of their digital research assets, while keeping costs under control and simplifying implementation.
A PID (Persistent Identifier) is a unique, unchangeable, and resolvable code that ensures long-term access to a digital object. It can point to any type of digital object and its associated metadata, and remains valid even if the object or its metadata undergo changes (URL update or versioning). Each PID is globally unique and can always be resolved to the current location of the object it identifies.
Belnet’s PID service is based on the Handle system and is offered by Belnet as the Belgian node of the ePIC consortium. It allows organisations to create, manage, and resolve PIDs, and also offers the possibility to hosting registered PIDs on servers that are managed by Belnet within the consortium. This setup provides a high level of sustainability and security with a failover strategy, geographic redundance, and dedicated support.
Handles can be used to reference research publications, datasets, databases, collection items, instruments, teaching materials, data management plans, lab procedures, etc. Using Handles improves discoverability and ensures traceability, making it enhance and monitor research impact unambiguously. Handles can also be used as part of an internal knowledge management strategy, such as organising large data collections or supporting archival workflows.
Together with other types of PIDs (e.g. DOIs, ROR, ORCID), Handles forms a connective layer that links research outputs, people and organisations. This system improves overall research reproducibility, supports the FAIR principles, and enables holistic, data-driven research and research strategy assessment.
Benefits
Long-term accessibility
You research outputs remain accessible over time.
Tracking
Accurate, unambiguous citation and tracking of scholarly work.
Supports the FAIR principles
By applying the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), your data is more AI-ready.
Enhanced visibility and credibility
Gain visibility and credibility within the research community.
Easier collaboration
Facilitated collaboration and data sharing between researchers worldwide.
Improved insight
Benefit from precise insights to better evaluate the impact of your research.
