In October 2025 we kicked off PID to Portal, funded by Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) and part of the SURF Open Research Information programme 2025–2030. The goal: strengthen the open research information chain, from persistent identifiers to the public research portal. The project is complete, and we are proud to share everything it delivered on one website:
→ surf-ori.github.io/pid2portal-project
Why it matters: better metadata, better decisions
We don't fill in ORCIDs and RORs for the sake of ORCIDs and RORs. Better metadata gives institutions analyses and strategic reports they can trust: open access monitoring that counts everything, analyses per researcher or partner that hold up, and benchmarks that credit the right institution.
Built with and for the signatories
The Dutch signatories of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information shaped every step. Their research intelligence, library and CRIS teams brought 14 use cases, prioritised the metadata that matters most (DOIs, ROR and ORCID), tested the dashboard and now use it to set their own goals. Eighteen organisations are visible in the dashboard today.
What you will find on the website
Improved monitoring of open research information
- ORI data quality dashboard: compares your CRIS with OpenAlex and OpenAIRE on coverage, completeness, enrichment and accuracy, and suggests interventions to close the gaps.
- ORI backbone: an open data lake (DuckLake, Parquet, SURF Object Store) with 2 TB of open research information from OpenAlex, OpenAIRE, CRIS and OpenAPC, with open pipelines and a data overview.
- ORI framework report and ORI metrics report, by Bianca Kramer (Sesame Open Science).
- ORI AI tools and crash course: ask the data lake questions in plain language, and build your own auditable dashboard in an hour with open source AI agents.
Groundwork for the Netherlands Research Portal
- Netherlands Research Portal: all Dutch research output in one place, built on OpenAIRE.
- A curated, open list of Dutch research organisations, a live status of repositories and CRIS systems, and the DURF Metadata Monitor.
- People are now an entity in the OpenAIRE Graph and API, the basis for an expert finder.
- A foundation for better governance and funding: UKB directors agreed to support the portal and to join OpenAIRE. The DURF project carries this forward.
The website also includes the PID Fest talk, a timeline of the year, the outcomes and impact, and the community stories we published along the way.
From gap to action
The dashboard does not stop at the gap. For every gap it suggests interventions, scored on effort and impact: from quick wins such as mandating ORCID at staff onboarding, to bigger changes in the CRIS deposit workflow.
These examples are a starting point. The real value comes from the signatories themselves: which approach works for you? What did it cost, and what did it bring? Share your intervention through the Feedback button on the project website, or directly in the ORI dashboard repository. Together we build a shared list of interventions, scored on effort and impact.
What's next
The work continues in two Open Science NL projects. BROCCOLI takes over the ORI dashboard and data lake for curation and maintenance; DURF builds on the groundwork for governance and funding of the Netherlands Research Portal. Want to use the ORI dashboard at your institution to set goals and plan interventions? Send us an e-mail and we will arrange an onboarding for your team.
Thank you
PID2Portal was a team effort. Thank you to Rutger de Jong (Leiden University) for his metadata expertise; Ana Ranitovic (University of Groningen) for her leading role as chair of the Dutch Barcelona Declaration signatories; Till Bey (SURF) for his knowledge of the ORI data lake and for setting it up; Bianca Kramer (Sesame Open Science) for her energy, for facilitating the workshops and community feedback, and for the excellent reports and presentations; and all Dutch Barcelona Declaration signatories for their use cases and their feedback on the ORI dashboard.
Behind the scenes, Joeri Both (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) encouraged us and connected us with OpenAIRE; Eileen Waegemaekers and John Doove (SURF) created this opportunity within SURF; and Darco Jansen (Universities of the Netherlands) secured the funding and built support among the boards of the Dutch universities. See all acknowledgements, with ORCID iDs.
This was built together, and it only gets better if we keep improving it together.
Maurice Vanderfeesten, on behalf of the SURF ORI programme team
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