What is ORCID?

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) is a an international, not-for-profit organisation that provides a registry of unique identifiers for researchers and scholars that is open, non-proprietary and transparent. These are also increasingly used by research organisations, funders, and publishers.

ORICD is a unique and persistent digital identifier used to disambiguate researchers from one another (especially those with similar names). It also allows a researcher’s work to be properly identified if their name changes later in their career, for example if they take on a partner’s surname in marriage or change their name to reflect their gender identity. ORCID author IDs also provide clarity where different naming conventions are used, or where middle initials can be applied in a variety of ways across publications.

This is important for bibliographic databases (such as SCOPUS, Web of Science, and PubMed), as well as the UWL Repository, as it will help to ensure you get the credit for the research you produce. ORCIDs are also mandated by a growing range of funders and publishers, including: NIHR, Wellcome Trust, PLOS, eLife, IEEE, Science, Wiley, Hindawi, JMIR and Frontiers.

One of the major benefits of the identifier is that it supports authentication across multiple platforms allowing researchers to link their professional activities and publications to their unique record; ensuring their scholarly contributions are properly attributed and permanently showcased.

ORCID at UWL

All UWL researchers should sign-up for and use ORCIDs as required by paragraph 14.2 of the UWL Publications Policy which states that:

All authors should register with the ORCID author ID service in order to facilitate future linking of outputs to authors and citations to ensure audit compliance.

ORCID registration is free and takes a matter of seconds.

Register or connect your ORCID to the UWL Repository

You may register for an ORCID identifier at http://www.orcid.org. Registration is free and fast: you need only enter your name and email address and create a password.

Alternatively you can register by clicking on the Manage ORCID Permission tab once logged into UWL Repository. From here you can click on the “Create or Connect your ORCID ID” button.

If you already have an iD, please also click on the Manage ORCID Permission tab once logged into UWL Repository and then the “Create or Connect your ORCID iD” button. Once you have granted permissions for reading and writing between ORCID and the UWL Repository, you will have two new buttons in your Manage deposits area, “Import from orcid.org” and “Export to orcid.org”. These allow you to push and pull descriptive records between UWL Repository and ORCID.

To find out more about how ORCID works, take a look at this overview for researchers: https://orcid.org/content/orcid-overview-researchers