The IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute is a practice partner in the DFG-funded research project AVefi plus, which aims to establish and expand an automated network system for audiovisual collections using standardized film identifiers.

The project will develop and test how a cross-institutional, web-based system, in which Persistent Identifiers (PID) play a central role, can serve as a research infrastructure for identifying AV works, their associated versions and data objects, and how they can be linked to each other. The PID system with the uniform film identifiers (“EFI”) assumes the function of a central database, brings together the existing metadata of the different versions and materials from the original databases of various institutions in a structured and, as far as possible, automated manner and thus ensures the free and long-term availability of this information. It is planned to support the disambiguation and allocation of metadata from different institutions through automatic synchronisation and matching routines. The network system to be developed, including a user-friendly search and editing interface, is intended to complement the already available "ecosystem" of (film) identifiers, data and authority files (e.g. Filmportal, EIDR; GND, NFDI4Culture) in a meaningful way and to fit into this as an original offer with a strong reference to holdings.

From November 2025 to October 2028, efforts will focus, among other things, on expanding the user base and strengthening the network system for the long term. In addition to the IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute, the Düsseldorf Film Museum is also participating as a network partner from the Düsseldorf network.