TCC Africa Introduces DOCiD™ and HospitiumRIS to Strengthen African Research Visibility and Digital Knowledge Management

Training Centre in Communication (TCC Africa) has announced the continued development and expansion of two strategic digital research infrastructure solutions — DOCiD™ and HospitiumRIS — aimed at strengthening the management, interoperability, discoverability, and long-term preservation of African research and scholarly outputs.

Developed under TCC Africa’s open infrastructure initiatives, the two platforms respond to growing institutional needs for research visibility, digital preservation, research governance, and interoperable scholarly communication systems across Africa and beyond.

DOCiD™ (Digital Object Container Identifier) is a FAIR Digital Object that applies a multilinear approach to generating African-originated Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) for research outputs. Unlike traditional identifiers that are assigned to a single publication or dataset, DOCiD™ functions as a persistent digital container that aggregates multiple research assets — including datasets, publications, software, protocols, code, and related scholarly outputs — into one interconnected and machine-actionable research object.

By enabling the tracking, linking, management, and preservation of complex collections of research materials, DOCiD™ enhances interoperability, discoverability, transparency, and reuse across institutional and global research infrastructures. The platform supports metadata-rich management, ensuring that all components within a research container remain visible, citable, and interconnected throughout the research lifecycle.

As an open infrastructure initiative, DOCiD™ is dedicated to strengthening the visibility, sovereignty, interoperability, and global discoverability of African knowledge systems and scholarly outputs. The platform represents the Africa PID Alliance’s approach to persistent identification and the management of complex research objects, supporting Open Science, structured data sharing, and inclusive scholarly communication across African research ecosystems.

A live implementation of DOCiD™ for individual researchers and institutions is currently available through the DOCiD™ App.

Alongside DOCiD™, TCC Africa is also advancing HospitiumRIS, a research information and management system specifically designed for hospitals, healthcare institutions, university teaching hospitals, and clinical research environments.

HospitiumRIS supports institutions in organizing, tracking, and managing research activities, outputs, compliance processes, and institutional knowledge within a centralized digital infrastructure. The platform enables healthcare and research institutions to manage research projects, protocols, publications, datasets, clinical studies, and grey literature while strengthening institutional reporting, research visibility, governance, compliance, and audit readiness.

The platform also integrates researcher profiles, institutional affiliations, and persistent identifiers such as DOIs and ORCIDs to improve interoperability across research ecosystems. By combining research administration, metadata management, institutional repositories, research analytics, knowledge preservation, and PID-enabled scholarly infrastructure, HospitiumRIS helps healthcare institutions preserve institutional memory and ensure that valuable clinical and research outputs remain discoverable, accessible, and traceable over time.

HospitiumRIS is particularly relevant for teaching and referral hospitals, medical research institutes, public health organizations, clinical trial environments, and university health research centers seeking to strengthen research coordination and digital knowledge management.

Together, DOCiD™ and HospitiumRIS represent a significant step toward strengthening Africa-led digital research infrastructure, supporting knowledge sovereignty, and enabling African institutions to participate more effectively within global scholarly and research ecosystems.

For more information:

Public  Relations Team

Training Centre in Communication

Faculty of Science Technology and Innovation

Gecaga Institute Bldg.,

 University of Nairobi 

LANDLINE: +254 020 808 6820 +254 020 2697401

EMAIL: pr@tcc-africa.org ,info@hospitiumris.org , info@africapidalliance.org 

WEBSITE: https://www.tcc-africa.org , https://hospitium.hospitiumris.org/ , https://docid.africapidalliance.org/about-us