The Zimbabwe University Libraries Consortium (ZULC) recently concluded a comprehensive outreach programme, funded by the Global Access Fund. The programme was aimed at raising awareness of persistent identifiers (PIDs) among Zimbabwean higher education institutions.

As DataCite’s Board President, I’ve seen firsthand the powerful insights that diverse voices bring to our global community of research institutions. Each member of our Board represents unique experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives that help shape our decisions and drive our mission forward.

As DataCite continually works to support our growing community, updating the DataCite Metadata Schema to better represent community use cases supports our goals of driving metadata quality and completeness.  Today, we’re excited to share the release of DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6, which expands the resourceTypeGeneral, relatedIdentifierType, relationType, contributorType, and dateType controlled lists in response to community feedback.

As 2024 comes to a close, we reflect on a year marked by milestones, progress, and the ever-deepening collaboration with our global community. This year, we celebrated 15 years of DataCite, a journey built on the collective dedication of members, partners, and stakeholders who share our vision of a connected and equitable research ecosystem.

As DataCite marks 15 years, we not only celebrate our achievements but also reflect on our journey of growth and resilience. Since our 10th anniversary, DataCite has evolved in remarkable ways. We now stand as a more inclusive and responsive membership organization, serving a global community of research institutions, from universities and libraries to funding bodies and national research organizations.

This is a guest blog post by Dawid Potgieter. Dawid leads the TWCF-funded Accelerating the Reach of Research on Consciousness (ARRC) project and shares some of the insights from the project in this blog post.

Through the partnership between DataCite and IGSN e.V. , DataCite services can be used to register International Generic Sample Numbers (IGSN IDs) for material samples. The blog series ‘IGSN ID Implementation Exemplars’ showcases sample management workflows developed by the community that incorporate IGSN ID registration.

The last weeks have been very busy, engaging with the DataCite community across the world. On 4 November, we hosted DataCite Connect in Livingstone, Zambia in collaboration with 27th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD 2024). This was our first event hosted in Africa and we welcomed 60 participants from countries including Zambia, Botswana, India, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

The Persistent Identifiers for Projects Community Dialogue, hosted by DataCite and Metadata Game Changers, brought together a diverse group of experts to explore how PIDs can transform the identification and documentation of projects and related resources of many kinds.

Metadata is at the heart of DataCite’s services. This blog post is about why and how an organization is harvesting DataCite metadata.

Hi there, I’m Katharina and I joined DataCite in October 2024 as the new Finance Manager. I wanted to take a moment to share a bit more about myself—my background, experience, and what I hope to bring to our team and community.