This case study is part of a series that has been produced within the study on “Risks and Trust in pursuit of a well-functioning PID infrastructure for research” commissioned by the Knowledge Exchange in July 2021. The main outcome of this work is a report examining the current PID landscape with an emphasis on its risks and trust-related issues. This case study provides insight into the process that led to selecting the Research Organization Registry (ROR) – initially based on the Digital Science Global Research Identifier (GRID) database – as the default international framework for the provision of OrgIDs. Insight into the challenges triggered by current developments are also addressed. The report, Building the Plane as We Fly It: the Promise of Persistent Identifiers, and remaining complementary case studies have also been published.