ORCiD Gets You Recognized and Advances Your Research Career

ORCID (which stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID) an independent, not-for-profit organization that reaches across disciplines, research sectors, and national boundaries. It provides the ORCiD identification number, which can be used to unmistakably identify you and your research.

So to clarify, ORCiD/ORCID is both an identifying tool (ORCiD) and the organization (ORCID) that provides it.

Regardless of your area of study or place of work, it’s critical for others can quickly and unambiguously identify and attribute your work – and only your work – to you.

Research and scholarly organizations and funders, publishers, scholarly societies and associations, and your fellow researchers and academics all need to know who you are and what you’ve done.

ORCiD helps you easily and reliably link your unique identity with your contributions such as datasets, articles, books, media stories, samples, experiments, patents, and notebooks.

ORCiD helps researchers stand out by more than their name

How many papers has Dr. Dave Smith written?

Smith is one of the most common family names in English. Lots of Dave Smiths will come up in your searches, from universities and other institutes all over the world. 

If you know the subject area and some of your Dr. Smith’s previous work, you may be able to partly narrow down the search. 

But if you don’t know which Dave Smith, or Taro Tanaka, or Dr. Chen, Dr. Kim, or Dr. Gomez, what do you do? Typically, this has meant added steps of verifying, checking the researcher’s history, and cross-checking to make sure you have the right one.

ORCiD solved that; saving researchers time and giving them a clear identifier other than their personal name.

What are ORCiD numbers?

ORCiD is a really simple idea. Your ID is a unique number assigned only to you. Registering for an ORCiD means that you’ll get a single, unique researcher number that ties you to all of your research work:  papers, outputs, grants, peer review, collaborations, institutions, colleagues, and so on.

Do you have your own ORCiD researcher identification number? If not, then we recommend you get one. Increasing numbers of researchers around the world have signed up for one and you probably should, too.

Why do I need an ORCiD?

Being easy to locate outside of your research team in today’s fast-moving, largely digital world is vital. 

People (funders, university assessment panels, journal editorial offices) will want to know immediately if you wrote a certain article, or if you wou’be suitable to be invited to be a peer reviewer for a particular topic or subject area. 

Your ORCiD makes you easier to find quickly in searches by reviewers, editors, and other researchers. This can enhance your research reputation internationally by ensuring that colleagues are able to find you and your work.

You’ll also want to use one of these IDs the next time you submit a paper to a peer-reviewed journal or an abstract to an international conference. To be successful as an international researcher, you need to be easily identifiable to colleagues all around the world, as we’ve discussed. 

Stand out from all the other Dr. Smiths in the world. Registration takes less than 2 minutes.

Little green badges everywhere

You’ll see ORCiD’s little green icon next to the names of authors at the top of papers, in the “contributions” section, and next to named peer reviewers in the Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. 

ORCiDs are becoming increasingly common across the publishing industry. Growing numbers of academic journals and publishing companies are even mandating their use when authors submit papers, while journal and researcher information sites are asking for access to your number when, for example, collating publication information or assessing grant applications.

In many cases, you’ll now find that you can’t physically submit an article to a journal unless you’ve registered for one of these unique numbers. This is the case in the journal I manage, for example. 

(Your ORCiD is one way you can sign up here for the Edanz Learning Lab.)

Get proper credit for your research work

ORCID numbers are useful because they ensure that you actually get credit for research you’ve done and published. Such would may otherwise be missed by a search engine, assessment agency, or any of the other parties mentioned above.

If you’ve already registered yourself on an academic network such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate, you’ll know the feeling. Sites like these often send out automated emails asking you, the researcher, if you’re responsible for x and y publications that have appeared and have been tentatively assigned to your profile based on subject area or family name.

Using an ORCiD removes this problem: no-one can confuse you, or your papers, with someone else or their work. This is good news, especially if you have a common family name like “Smith.”

ORCID identification numbers are thus also an important part of the move toward more open research and international scholarship.

Maintain your online CV and searchable research presence for free

The ORCID interface searches a number of other online resources as well as literature databases to capture your current and past published work. 

The system assembles a CV for you, basically, as you are also able to add other information such as current research information, ongoing grants, and projects. 

ORCiDs are therefore more than just a way to get you and your work better known and searchable internationally.

Getting one of these IDs means you’ll be able to promote your work and research profile around the world much more effectively.

Find out more about ORCiD

Visit the ORCiD website and register for your free ID and manage your ID there.

ORCiD recognizes that you own your record of contributions. You can maintain all of your key information in one place, and you control your own privacy settings, including what information is displayed publicly, what is shared only with trusted partners, and who those trusted partners are.

ORCiD is founded on interoperability with multiple systems and institutions. It allows you to link with other identifier systems, including those maintained by funders and publishers, and exchange data freely with those research information systems.

What if you have more than one ORCiD? This is not recommended, because it means your “brand” is being diluted. You’ll need to consolidate your IDs into one.

Now let’s build that ORCiD record

Got questions about promoting yourself or your research? Need help building your CV? Want to make a greater impact? Our Edanz experts can help. Ask us anything.

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