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ORCID iDs

Scholarly Communication Librarian

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Ellen Dubinsky

ORCID iDWhat is ORCID?

ORCID (Open Researcher & Contributor Identifier) is an international, interdisciplinary, open, non-proprietary, and not-for-profit institution. ORCID enables transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and affiliations by providing an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.

What is an ORCID iD?

  • A persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from other researchers and ensures your research outputs and activities are correctly attributed to you.
  • Your ORCID iD is yours throughout your career, no matter where you work, who funds you, whether your name or field of research changes, or if your names appears in different forms in different places.
  • You control your ORCID iD. You control when and where you use your iD. You manage connections to your iD, including deciding who gets to add what information, and whether and by whom this data may be viewed and accessed.

 

Why is an ORCID account important?

  • Your ORCID iD distinguishes you from all other researchers, especially those with a similar or the same name.
  • ORCID saves time by reducing repetitive data entry. You can link your ORCID account with trusted parties. Once linked, these systems can push information back and forth – saving you time from re-entering citation information.
  • ORCID is more universal than other researcher profile systems (such as Google Scholar, Scopus Author Identifier, or ResearcherID from Clarivate).
  • More and more publishers are providing options to link authors’ and reviewers’ ORCID iDs in their manuscript submission systems. Some publishers are starting to mandate use of ORCID iDs for authors. (ORCID maintains a list of publishers that require an ORCID iD.)
  • Funders are starting to adopt ORCID in their funding application process. This includes the National Institutes of Health (see below).

 

Other Reasons this Matters

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UA Vitae can import data (such as your publications, employment affiliations, and education affiliations) from your ORCID record.

You can use your ORCID record to quickly populate your SciENcv Biosketch.

SciENcv logo

Federal funding agencies are increasingly recommending or requiring that applicants use SciENcv to create Biosketches and other forms for use in the grant application submission and reporting processes. After October 23, 2023, the NSF will only accept applications with Biosketches and Current and Pending (Other) Support forms prepared using SciENcv.

 

Funder Requirements for ORCID

As of January 2020, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) require that individuals supported by research training, fellowship, research education, and career development awards must have ORCID iDs (Open Researcher and Contributor identifiers). See Notice Number NOT-OD-19-109 for details.

The requirement for ORCID identifiers is implemented through the appointment process for those appointed to institutional awards and through the application process for those applying for individual awards.

In October 2019 the requirement for ORCID identifiers was incorporated into the appointment process for trainees, scholars, and participants supported by institutional research training, career development, and research education awards that require appointments through the xTrain system, including the following:

  • T03, T15, T32, T34, T35, T37, T42, T90/R90, TL1, TL4, TU2, K12/KL2, R25, R38, RL5, RL9

At the time of appointment, the xTrain system checks whether appointees have ORCID iDs and appointments are not accepted for agency review unless an ORCID iD is linked to the individual's eRA Commons Personal Profile.

Beginning with receipt dates on or after January 25, 2020, the requirement for ORCID identifiers was enforced at the time of application for individual fellowship and career development awards, including the following:

  • F05, F30, F31, F32, F33, F37, F38, F99/K00, FI2, K01, K02, K05, K07, K08, K18, K22, K23, K24,
    K25, K26, K38, K43, K76, K99/R00

eRA system validations check whether applicants have ORCID iDs and applications are not accepted unless an ORCID iD is linked to the PD/PI's eRA Commons Personal Profile.