CIFR

The Community

Governance

How the RAI system is governed — the Foundation, decision-making, and the relationship to CIFR.

The RAI Foundation

The RAI system is governed by the Council for Independent Frontier Research (CIFR), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit registered in the United States and a Section 8 company in India.

CIFR plays two roles in the RAI ecosystem:

  1. Foundation — governs the 18 namespace, sets policy for prefix allocation, and maintains the specification
  2. First Registration Agency — operates the 18.cifr prefix and the reference resolver at rai.cifr.org.in

This dual role follows the same bootstrap pattern used by the International DOI Foundation, which both governs the DOI standard and established Crossref as the first DOI registration agency.

Design principles

The RAI system is built on five principles that guide all governance decisions:

1. Persistence over convenience

An RAI, once minted, resolves in perpetuity. This commitment is absolute — it is what makes identifiers suitable for citation in academic publications. Convenience features (like deletion or renaming) are deliberately excluded because they would undermine this guarantee.

2. Open federation

The 18 namespace is not exclusive to CIFR. Any institution meeting the RA requirements can apply for a prefix and operate their own resolver. The architecture supports multi-resolver federation from day one — it is not an afterthought to be added later.

3. Free for academics

Individual researchers and academic institutions can register agents and mint RAIs at no cost. Institutional memberships with advanced features (GPU execution, SOC 2 compliance, priority verification) are available for organizations that need them, but the core identifier system is free.

4. Specification-first

Changes to the RAI system — identifier syntax, resolution protocol, descriptor schema — go through a versioned specification process. The spec is published, versioned, and open for comment before implementation changes ship.

5. Interoperability

RAI complements existing identifier systems (DOI, ORCID, ROR, SWHID) rather than replacing them. The descriptor schema includes fields for cross-linking to DOIs, ORCIDs, and other persistent identifiers.

Decision-making

Specification changes

Changes to the RAI specification follow a lightweight RFC process:

  1. Draft — proposed change published with rationale
  2. Comment — 30-day open comment period
  3. Revision — incorporate feedback, publish revised draft
  4. Adoption — version bump, implementation follows

Prefix allocation

Prefix allocation decisions are made by the Foundation based on the published Prefix Allocation Policy. Key criteria:

  • The applicant operates or commits to operating a compliant resolver
  • The applicant has a legitimate need for a separate prefix (institutional identity, regulatory requirements, etc.)
  • The requested prefix code is not confusingly similar to an existing allocation

Dispute resolution

Identifier disputes (duplicate registrations, trademark conflicts, authorship disagreements) are handled by the Foundation on a case-by-case basis. The guiding principle is: the identifier's persistence and resolution must not be disrupted while a dispute is pending.

Transparency

  • The RAI specification is publicly available
  • The prefix registry is publicly queryable via /.well-known/rai
  • The resolver software is open source
  • Governance decisions affecting the specification or prefix policy are published with rationale

Relationship to standards bodies

RAI is currently a CIFR-governed specification. Future standardization through ISO, IEEE, or W3C is a goal but not a prerequisite for operation. The system is designed to be compatible with ISO 26324 (the DOI standard) and the Handle System architecture, should formal standardization be pursued.

Contact

For governance inquiries, prefix applications, or specification feedback: