ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a persistent identifier (PID) giving researchers and authors a single unique ID which can be used across the research lifecycle and throughout their careers. It is free to register and use, is community owned, and is run on a not-for-profit basis. The researcher registers for, and manages, their own ORCID record, retaining authority over their ORCID record and controlling its visibility. Because of the benefits, ORCID is strongly recommended for all researchers.
The main advantages of ORCID are:
- Author disambiguation. Each researcher has a single, unique ORCID - this can help to disambiguate authors with common names, or provide continuity where names or institutions have changed.
- Public profile. Each ORCID generates a profile, which the researcher can choose to make openly visible. This profile can showcase your publications and employment history, as well as peer review activity, funding awards, memberships and services, and invited positions and distinctions.
- Interoperability. ORCID makes use of APIs - these provide the "plumbing" between the different systems in the research landscape, such as publishers, research funders and institutions. If a researcher enables APIs between systems, this triggers automatic cross-populating and updating, decreasing the need for re-keying information.
ORCID has been adopted by the scholarly community, with over 10 million members from over 1000 member institutions in 44 countries. ORCID is mentioned in UKRI's open access policy in Annex 2, Technical requirements for research articles. Many organisations have included ORCID in their workflows, including publishers , funders, societies, data sharing agents, and discovery services such as Clarivate (Web of Science), Scopus and CrossRef. By having an ORCID profile, you can help these agents to gain a full view of your research career to date, and streamline their processes too.
How to create your ORCID
University of Birmingham researchers are recommended to set up their ORCID profile via Pure. From your Pure profile page, click on “create/link to an ORCID”, and you can start populating your ORCID by Adding Works as appropriate. Make sure you set your profile as public so that others can see it.
Further training and support
What is Orcid?
This video highlights the benefits of ORCID for researchers.
Library Services' Research Skills Team offer an ORCID for early career researchers workshop.