As a researcher you want to be sure that

• your publications can be found easily
• your publications are identified as your work

 
You want to avoid

• that your publications are connected to a person with a similar name
• entering your publication data over and over again

ORCiD is an open, non-commercial and community-based service which provides a register of unique identifiers to distinguish researchers from each others. It is supported by universities, academies, funder institutions, publishers, libraries and other stakeholders worldwide.

See: What is ORCiD? (Video)

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. ORCiD is a 16-digit combination, which can also be shown as a URL (e.g. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7996-7083). ORCiD distinguishes your research activites from those of others with similar names and identifies you as the author even if you publish with different names or name versions. 

Your ORCiD remains the same throughout your whole career - and even beyond - and it is easily possible to add journal articles, book chapters, datasets, figshare items, blog and newsletter entries, newspaper and magazine articles, your peer reviewer activities and a lot more to your ORCiD profile. This connection is independent of how your name is written, where you work, which research area you work in and it even remains the same when you change your name. ORCiD makes it easier for you to collaborate across disciplines, institutions and borders thanks to its ability to communicate with other research information systems. There is therefore no need to keep entering data over and over again.

After you have registered an ORCiD you can add a CV and enter your research activities. Use your ORCiD when submitting a manuscript or applying for grants or projects. This ensures your work is recognised.

Since ORCiD was launched in 2012 more than 1.7 Mio ORCIDs have been registered.

A lot of research organisations and publishers have already implemented ORCiD. That's how they improve communication between the different input systems (such as Current Research Information Systems, repositories, personnel management systems, project databses, publication databases, grant application systems etc.).

Some universities use ORCiD in their repositories and personnel management systems

• Imperial College London
• University of Cambridge
• University of Oxford
• University of York
• etc.

Publishers use ORCiD in the publication process and some have even integrated it in their peer-review process. There are already more than 1000 journals using ORCiD.

• PLos
• Wiley
• Springer/Biomed Central
• Springer Nature integrated ORCiD for books and book chapters
• MDPI
• Copernicus
• Elsevier
• Royal Society
• American Geophysical Union
• etc.

Some research funders integrated ORCiD into their grant submission systems and databases. For some grant submissions an ORCiD is already mandatory.

• Wellcome Trust
• NIHR
• FWF
• etc.

Once you have recorded your ORCiD in BORIS, you can enjoy the following benefits:

• ORCiD and BORIS can exchange data with one another, so you don’t have to enter the same information in both systems.

• If your ORCiD is recorded in BORIS, it will also be passed on to the University of Bern’s personnel administration system, PARIS. Other university services will therefore be able to access your ORCID data, thus enabling them to clearly identify you.

• When entering new publications, ORCiD will soon make it easier for you to link them to the relevant position.

License
The ORCiD Wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.