ORCID
A unique ID for every researcher — the thread that ties a career's work together.
At a Glance
- Publisher
- ORCID (a nonprofit)
- Coverage
Persistent identifiers for millions of researchers, linking each to their publications, grants, affiliations, and peer-review activity (verify current counts).
- Access
Free for researchers; open API and public data file.
- Free alternative
- It is free.
- Regional
Global; increasingly required by funders and publishers.
Our Take
ORCID solves the author-disambiguation problem that plagues every citation database: one persistent ID that follows a researcher across name changes, institutions, and databases. It’s now embedded in submission and grant systems worldwide, and its open API makes it a linchpin for connecting people to outputs in tools like OpenAlex and Dimensions. It’s identity infrastructure, not a literature database — you use it to register your own record and to disambiguate authors in analysis. Use it to keep your record authoritative and to resolve who-wrote-what cleanly in bibliometrics.
Power Tips
- Keep your ORCID record current and set works to auto-update from Crossref/DataCite.
- Use ORCID iDs to disambiguate authors reliably in bibliometric analysis.
- Connect your ORCID at submission so credit follows you across publishers.
Alternatives & Complements
ROR, Crossref, Scopus Author ID, OpenAlex
Figures last verified: June 15, 2026