Principal investigator

A Principal Investigator (PI) in the context of PANGAEA is the person responsible for the acquisition and scientific quality of a dataset or data series. This is typically the researcher who generated or curated the data and is scientifically accountable for it. The PI serves as the main scientific contact and can be seen as the equivalent of a corresponding author for a specific part of the dataset.

In a published data table, each data series (i.e., table column) can have a maximum of one PI assigned. This ensures clear responsibility, scientific traceability, and proper attribution for each parameter.

Contact information

For enabling users of the data to contact the responsible person for clarification, collaboration, or further information, each PI must be identified with valid contact details, including:

• an e‑mail address
• ideally an ORCID iD to enable persistent and unique researcher identification

If the PI’s name is not yet linked to their ORCID iD in PANGAEA, this can be corrected by:

• associating the relevant PANGAEA user account with the ORCID iD (only the user account owner can do it)
• if the link is not established automatically after that, submitting a request via the contact form to have it added manually

Relation to authorship

The PI is typically also one of the authors of the dataset and is responsible for the scientific validity of the data series. While the PI ensures the scientific quality, data submission may be performed by another contributor (e.g., a co-author, data manager, or data steward).

Clarification

It is important to distinguish a PANGAEA PI from a project PI. In this context, the PI designation is not related to funding responsibilities or project management. It refers exclusively to scientific responsibility for individual data series within the dataset.

This article reflects the current practice concerning this topic, i.e. as of fall 2025. It is very likely that this was handled differently at some point in PANGAEA's long history. We ask for your understanding that there is no entitlement to publish your data in accordance with past practices in this regard.