Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID)

ORCID Inc. is a non-profit organization supported by a global community of organizational members, including research organizations, publishers, funders, professional associations, and other stakeholders in the research ecosystem. The ORCID registry was launched in 2012, providing persistent digital identifiers that distinguish each individual researcher you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supporting automated linkages between them and their professional activities.

Since its launch, ORCID has provided more than 4 million identifiers for people contributing to the research ecosystem. ORCID has more than 800 member organisations, roughly half of which are based in Europe, from every section of the research community, from research performing organisations to funders to publishers to repository platforms.

ORCID has worked with many partners, organisations and initiatives to bring transparency, openness, efficiency and interoperability to the global research enterprise. These activities have ranged from improved recognition for diverse contributions to research, better connections between researchers and their publications, the adoption of research information standards and more researcher-centric information systems. In pursuit of these goals, ORCID has established partnerships with a number of organizations, including the Research Data Alliance (where it serves on the Organizational Advisory Board), CASRAI, DataCite, EuroCRIS, and Force 11 amongst others.

These activities serve ORCID’s vision of a world where all who participate in research, scholarship, and innovation are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders, and time.

As well as unique, persistent identifiers, ORCID provides open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and affiliations. We provide this service to help people find information and to simplify reporting and analysis. These services and tools are driven by our community, and supported by a truly global, diverse team working from our purely virtual office.