University and District Library
ORCID the unique Author Identification
The Open Research and Contributor iD (ORCID) is an internationally established persistent identifier for researchers, which connects scientists with their research.
In the course of their careers, many scientific authors have experienced that their publications cannot be clearly assigned to them, e.g. due to identical names, name changes or different spellings.
This problem can be solved by a unique author identification, which is assigned by the non-profit organization ORCID. This "Open Researcher and Contributor ID" is a numerical code which is already used by many scientific publishers and research funders. This allows you to link your journal and data publications directly to your personal ORCID-iD.
Advantages of an ORCID-iD:
- Unique, permanent digital identifier (digital fingerprint)
- If desired, usage in social media such as Research Gate, Kudos, ...
- Clear assignment of publications to a researcher (also data publications, e.g. Zenodo)
- Many publishers already use ORCID as standard
- Integration of the ORCID-iD into the application process of research funders (e.g. DFG)