The start of 2016 has seen a number of academic publishers declare their intention to make it compulsory for authors to use ORCID identifiers during the publication process.The implementation of this will commence during the course of the year, and follows the example of the UK’s Royal Society, which established its policy from January 2016. 

The publishers behind this announcement are as follows: American Geophysical Union (AGU), eLife, EMBO, Hindawi, the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Public Library of Science (PLOS) (source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/o-ptr010416.php).

What are ORCID IDs?

To quote directly from ORCID’s own website (orcid.org):

'ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized.'

At the time of writing, over 1.8 million researchers globally have registered with ORCID. Benefits for researchers include disambiguation from authors with the same or similar names and improved discoverability for their research.

ORCID’s own blog also emphasizes that the recent launch of CrossRef’s auto-update functionality (http://blog.crossref.org/2015/09/orcid-auto-update.html) will facilitate the process of ‘pushing’ updates about published research to authors’ ORCID records, saving time for researchers and institutions to collect records manually.

The move by the publishers noted above, alongside their encouragement for others to follow their example, is significant for the diversity of scientific disciplines covered. Around 3000 journals are already collecting ORCID IDs from authors, as are many of the leading peer review systems, and the increasing ‘interoperability’ of the technology to support this means that the IDs can be collected and imported through the workflow without requiring the author to manually re-insert the ID during the peer review and production processes.

It is anticipated that more publishers will follow the example of those listed above.

As a researcher, registering for an ORCID ID takes only a few minutes.

 Any questions requiring help with registration can make use of the resources on the ORCID website, or contact The Charlesworth Group's helpdesk team for advice.