The English Translation of My Chapter on Persistent Identifiers Is Now Available

I’m happy to share that the English translation of my chapter “Persistent Identifiers: The Achilles’ Heel of Open Science” is now available as an open-access publication on Zenodo.

You can read or download it here:

🔗 https://zenodo.org/records/15803055

This chapter was originally written in Spanish and received an Honourable Mention in the “Dominique Babini” Prize, as part of the CLACSO call Knowledge as a Common Good: Contributions from Latin America and the Caribbean to Open Science. It was later published in the collective volume of the same name, which is also available in open access.

The motivation behind this chapter was to explore the critical role that persistent identifiers (PIDs) play in the digital research ecosystem —and to question whether the current centralized, commercial, and geopolitically biased governance of these infrastructures truly aligns with the principles of Open Science.

The chapter traces the history of PIDs —from URLs and PURLs to Handle, DOI, and ARK— and highlights how these infrastructures, while technically robust, embed asymmetries that disadvantage the Global South and contradict the ethos of knowledge as a common good. It also discusses emerging decentralized alternatives, such as ARK-CAICYT and dPID, as steps toward more equitable and resilient infrastructures.

Writing and translating this piece has been a journey of learning and reflection. I’m deeply grateful to the many scholars and practitioners whose work inspired and informed this chapter —especially those who have questioned the status quo and advocated for more just and open systems.

I hope this English version helps broaden the conversation and invites more critical thinking about how we build and govern the infrastructures that underpin knowledge production and sharing.

If you have thoughts, comments, or want to discuss these ideas further, I’d love to hear from you.

#OpenScience #PersistentIdentifiers #KnowledgeCommons #GlobalSouth