[Status: Under development, Date: 2025/05/26 09:18, Version: 001]

The Helmholtz Association is determined to make their data available according to the FAIR principles, thus making it findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. In order to achieve interoperability of datasets among various data infrastructures (DIS) within the Helmholtz Association, a common and agreed procedure to refer to the respective Helmholtz Centres (organisations) within and across the DIS is needed.

In order to be able to uniquely and sustainably identify the responsibilities and the context of cooperation within data infrastructures and repositories in the Helmholtz Association, the referencing of the respective centre should in principle be carried out with a persistent identifier (PID).

To achieve this, several stakeholder groups need to be involved. These groups are: 1. Helmholtz Center’s management and policy makers (see recommendation M2.1) 2. Helmholtz Employees contributing to data products (see recommendation M2.2) 3. Helmholtz data stewards and repository maintainers and developers (see recommendation M3.3)

It is recommended that all data infrastructures and repositories of the Helmholtz Association use ROR to identify organizations to resources in data infrastructures wherever and whenever possible.

Precondition 1: The ROR Registry is available for everybody, the content is maintained and further developed.

Precondition 2: Helmholtz Centres strongly encourage their management and policy makers to register and maintain their ROR (see Recommendation 2.1). It is also recommended to keep the organization data publicly available. [prüfen, ob letztere Auflage notwedig ist]

Precondition 3: All Helmholtz employees who publish data or maintain research data refer to the corresponding RORs and keep the data current (see Recommendation 2.2).

Precondition 4: All Helmholtz data stewards and repository maintainers and developers within the Helmholtz Association refer to the corresponding Centres through RORs when describing data sets, publications, or other resources, where possible and appropriate (see Recommendation 2.3).

Parent: 0.1

Dependent: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3

Other: none

Names of contributors to this recommendation

About

History and structure

Current Use of …

Over the recent years numerous repositories and initiatives have recommended the use of ROR. Among them e.g. Arbeitskreis Forschungsdatenmanagement (AK FDM) in Baden-Württemberg [1]

Motivation

Research Organisation Registry (ROR) is a community-managed database designed to provide a persistent identifier for every research organisation in the world[1], complementing other commonly used identifiers such as ORCID for researchers and DOI for research outputs and online scientific publications.

Originally, the database was fed with data from the Global Research Identifier Database (GRID). In 2021, it was announced that ROR would take over the role of GRID's leading open organisation identifier.[2] ROR Release v1.0 was the first release after the separation from GRID in March 2022.[3]

The database can be accessed via the official website, an open API or as a downloadable database dump. All ROR identifiers and metadata are provided under the CC0 licence.

Several alternatives exist:

1. GRID (Global Research Identifier Database) [Deprecated, replaced by ROR]

Status: No longer maintained, but still used in legacy systems.

Scope: Global research institutions, similar to ROR.

Use case: May be used if your system still relies on GRID identifiers, which are mapped to ROR in most cases.

Note: Since ROR is a community-led continuation of GRID, migrating to ROR is generally encouraged.

2. ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier)

Scope: Broad—covers not only research institutions but also other organizations and individuals involved in creative or intellectual work.

Managed by: ISNI International Agency.

Use case: Useful for linking to authority records in library or publishing systems (e.g., for institutions in MARC21 authority data).

3. National or Domain-Specific Authority Files

Examples include:

GND (Gemeinsame Normdatei) – German National Authority File.

LCNAF – Library of Congress Name Authority File (U.S.).

SUDOC – French academic institutions (Abes).

Use case: Often used in library, archival, or bibliometric infrastructures.

Limitation: Coverage and update frequency vary; may not be globally interoperable.

4. Internal Institutional IDs

Scope: Local or consortium-level identifiers for partner institutions or affiliates.

Use case: When working within a closed or federated system (e.g., within Helmholtz or NFDI), organizations may assign internal codes or URIs.

Caution: Not globally resolvable unless made publicly accessible.

(quality of content, limitations, interoperability, sustainability: expected future dissemination / technical availability / funding)

It is recommended that all data infrastructures and repositories of the Helmholtz Association use ROR to identify organizations to resources in data infrastructures wherever and whenever possible.

[1] Entwicklung in Baden-Württemberg: ORCID und ROR IDs als Standard für langfristige Personen- und Institutionen-Identifierhttps://bausteine-fdm.de/article/view/8272