The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) registry provides unique, persistent, non-proprietary identifiers for researchers, creators, and contributors of all types. Your ORCID iD moves with you throughout your career, improving attribution and visibility of your grants, research, scholarship, and creative and entrepreneurial activities. The use of ORCID iDs is fast becoming standard in academia, and many publishers and funders now require them. Think of it like a DOI for a person.
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Name ambiguity. Researcher names are neither unique nor static: whatever your name is, there may be someone else out there with the same one. Your name may appear in many different ways throughout your career. ORCID identifiers are a tool for disambiguating researchers and creators to ensure that they get credit for their work.
ORCID identifiers differ from other research identifiers in the following ways:
The registry isn't a "social network," despite the "collect and connect" model: your ORCID profile simply displays the activities, education, employment, and funding you add or approve from Trusted Organizations (see "Controlling Privacy and Visibility" for more information on how this works).
Having an ORCID iD helps you:
Many academic and research outlets are adopting ORCID iDs. Some grant funders and publishers already require an ORCID iD on manuscript submissions or grant proposals.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This guide was adapted from the University of Nevada Las Vegas and used with permission.