Physical Samples in the PID Ecosystem

Persistent unique identifiers (PIDs) are a critical element of the research ecosystem. They unambiguously identify and cite digital representations of many entities, including physical samples, publications, data, instruments, researchers, organisations, funding awards, field programs, and others: they also enable unequivocal connections between them to be explicitly expressed. Physical samples are tightly coupled to the communities of practice working with them, their physical nature gives rise to unique challenges in applying the FAIR and CARE Guidance Principles to samples and any datasets derived from them. The aim of this BoF is to go beyond identifiers per se and encompass themes of discovery, access, reproducibility, and the support of a global, multidisciplinary specimen ecosystem. This BoF will introduce and discuss the services, tools, projects, and community efforts that involve making physical specimens FAIR and CARE-compliant and as Open as possible. Panellists will include representatives from specimen-related projects, representatives from the various domains working with physical specimens, such as geology, archeology, and biodiversity, and representatives from digital research infrastructures. The goal of the session is to 1) determine the level of interest in forming more discipline/topic-specific communities of practice and 2) share best practices in linking samples to derived datasets.