ORCID

You need to be able to easily and uniquely attach your identity to research outputs such as datasets, equipment, articles, media stories, citations, experiments, patents, and notebooks.

By using ORCID you can ensure that all your research activities and outputs are easily discoverable.

One of the big problems for attributing research activities and outputs correctly to a researcher is name ambiguities:

• A researcher's name can appear as different variants (e.g. David Byrne, D. Byrne, David Walter Byrne, D.W. Byrne ...)
• Two or more researchers, even in the same institution or school, can have the same name (e.g. D. Byrne in Dublin, D. Byrne in Manchester)
• Names with diacritics or graphemes are often spelled in different ways (e.g. Jörg Müller, Joerg Mueller, Jorg Muller; M. Sandfær, M. Sandfaer)
• Names can appear in different writing systems (e.g. Tatiana Vagramenko, Татиана Ваграменко)

By registering and using an ORCID ID you can easily distinguish yourself and assure that your work is attributed only to yourself.

An ORCID ID can reduce repetitive data entry. As ORCID is increasingly implemented into other systems the exchange of profile or publication data is being better facilitated. 

This can be data:

• for manuscript submissions to publishers who have implemented ORCID (e.g. Nature Publ. Group, Taylor & Francis, Wiley) or
• from and to other ID systems (e.g. Researcher ID, Scopus Author ID) or
• for funding applications to agencies that have implemented ORCID (e.g Wellcome Trust, NIH)
• used by employers (e.g. Boston University, University College London) or professional associations (e.g. RSC, IEEE, MLA)

By using ORCID's API the system works as a hub to connect many research activities.