ORCID

ORCID
Name	ORCID
Founded	2012
Type	Nonprofit organization
Headquarters	[Not to be linked]
Key people	[Not to be linked]
Purpose	Provide persistent digital identifiers for researchers

ORCID ORCID is a nonprofit organization that issues persistent digital identifiers to distinguish individual researchers and to link their contributions across publications, funding, and institutional systems. It connects to scholarly infrastructures, publishers, funders, and libraries to reduce ambiguity among names and to enable reliable attribution of works, datasets, grants, and affiliations. ORCID identifiers are widely used in research workflows, repository systems, manuscript submission processes, data citation practices, and research assessment contexts.

Overview

ORCID provides a 16-digit identifier intended to uniquely identify researchers and to enable interoperability among systems used by Elsevier, Clarivate, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis. The identifier is used alongside services from Crossref, DataCite, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus to connect publications, datasets, and other research outputs. Institutions such as Harvard University, University of Oxford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and University of Tokyo integrate ORCID into their institutional repositories and researcher profiles. Funders including the National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, and the National Science Foundation encourage or require ORCID identifiers in grant applications.

History and development

ORCID was established following community discussions involving stakeholders such as Digital Science, Jisc, CERN, California Digital Library, and representatives from publishers including PLOS and Nature Publishing Group. Early development built on identifier efforts like Handle System and projects associated with DOI agencies such as International DOI Foundation. Adoption accelerated after initiatives by organizations including CrossRef and DataCite that linked DOIs to ORCID records. Milestones in the project's timeline intersect with major scholarly communication events involving OpenAIRE, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and conferences such as the ALPSP meetings and the Association of Research Managers and Administrators gatherings.

Identifier system and metadata

ORCID issues a 16-digit ISO-compatible identifier similar in form to identifiers managed by International Organization for Standardization standards bodies and interoperable with systems used by Crossref and DataCite. Metadata associated with an ORCID record can include works linked to records in PubMed Central, datasets archived in repositories like Dryad and Zenodo, patent records from offices such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office, and affiliations with institutions such as Stanford University and Max Planck Society. Authentication and delegation mechanisms connect ORCID with authentication providers including Shibboleth deployments at consortia like InCommon and identity federations used by eduGAIN. Metadata schemas interact with standards maintained by organizations like the W3C and registries such as the OpenAIRE Guidelines for CRIS.

Adoption and integration

Publishers such as IEEE, American Chemical Society, Royal Society, Cambridge University Press, and SAGE Publications have integrated ORCID into manuscript submission workflows. Repository platforms like Figshare, DSpace, EPrints, and Fedora Commons support ORCID-linked deposits. National initiatives in countries including United Kingdom, China, Japan, Australia, and Canada have promoted ORCID for national research assessment and reporting, with integrations into systems used by agencies like Research Councils UK and national libraries including the Library of Congress. Corporate and commercial research platforms such as Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Mendeley interact variably with ORCID records through import/export and API connections.

Governance and funding

ORCID is governed by a board and sustained through membership fees, service contracts, and grants from stakeholders including universities, publishers, and funders. Member organizations have included major research institutions like Cornell University, University of California, ETH Zurich, and consortia such as Coalition S proponents. Funding and strategic partnerships have linked ORCID with initiatives by European Commission programs, philanthropic organizations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and collaborations with infrastructure providers such as Crossref and DataCite.

Privacy, security, and policy

ORCID implements privacy settings, authentication, and data access controls to comply with regional regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation and institutional policies at universities like Yale University and Princeton University. Security practices coordinate with standards promoted by NIST and identity federations like eduGAIN and InCommon. ORCID’s policy framework addresses data provenance, record ownership, and API access consistent with recommendations from bodies such as Committee on Publication Ethics and community consultations at conferences including Force11.

Impact and criticisms

ORCID has improved disambiguation for contributors linked to systems like Crossref and DataCite, aiding bibliometric analyses used by organizations such as Clarivate and national assessment exercises like those managed by Research Excellence Framework. Critics and commentators from academic communities including scholars active in Scholarly Kitchen discussions and initiatives such as Open Science advocates have raised issues about mandatory ORCID requirements, commercial dependencies involving publishers like Elsevier, and concerns about centralization noted by librarians at institutions including British Library and National Library of France. Debates continue around completeness of metadata, equity of adoption among researchers affiliated with institutions such as Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and University of the Witwatersrand, and interoperability challenges with legacy author identifier systems such as ResearcherID and local national identifiers used in countries like China and India.

Category:Identifiers