ORCID for Researchers

Why should I get an ORCID ID?

Your name may be identical to another researcher's or you may use different variants of your name. Your name is therefore not unique enough to identify your scholarly activity from that of others. ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) provides you with a unique digital identifier that distinguishes you from everyone else in the world and is a record of your professional activities. It stays with you throughout your academic career. You remain in control of your ORCID ID and you can allow funders, publishers, or your institution to update information in your record. This saves you time, enabling you to use your ORCID ID to apply for further research grants or inform your institution of your research outputs. Other benefits can be found on this ORCID webpage. 

Watch a short video about ORCID

What is ORCID? from ORCID on Vimeo.

Getting an ORCID ID

Getting an ORCID ID is quick and simple. This example of an ORCID record lets you view the information that is included:

• A short biography
• Variants of your name
• Keywords associated with your research interests
• Your place(s) of employment (current and previous)
• Funding awards received
• Research outputs: publications, lectures/speeches delivered, patents and many others

You remain in control of the privacy settings of every part of your record – any of the above can be made private, available to trusted parties, or publicly visible.

ORCID has its own privacy policy, available here.

Populating your ORCID record

You can import your publication information from a variety of sources, including Scopus, Google Scholar and others, using ORCID’s search and link wizard tools. You can also enter information manually.

The following video shows how to do this:

How to import works into your ORCID record using a Search & Link wizard from ORCID on Vimeo.

Using your ORCID record

You can allow other, trusted, parties to read from or write information to your ORCID record by giving them permission – which you can revoke at any time. Having other parties write trusted information to your ORCID ID makes the information more reliable.

• Publishers: when you publish a paper in a journal the publisher can automatically add the data about that publication, including a DOI, to your ORCID record but NOT the paper itself, i.e. ORCID is not a repository.
• Funders: if you are awarded a research grant, the funder can write that information to your ORCID record. They may also be able to pull information from your ORCID record into their grant application system when you are applying for funding.
• Employer: you can allow your institution’s research information system to read your ORCID record, saving you time in entering information manually. Your institution can also assert your employment in your ORCID record with the source of the information being your employer.

The ORCID message: enter once, reuse often.

FAQs about ORCID for researchers