The Office of Research encourages all UW researchers to register for an Open Researcher and Contributor iD, a unique digital identifier that helps link researchers to grants, publications, and other research-related work.

ORCID iDs provide a persistent digital identifier that is unique to individuals and distinguishes researchers from one another. Researchers can connect their ORCID iD to affiliations, grants, publications, peer reviews, and many other systems. 

Increasingly, institutions such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are requiring ORCID iDs for certain applications; many journals and other publications are requiring ORCID iDs during the submission process. Furthermore, iDs assist in distinguishing researchers with similar names from one another while also making it easier to track an individual’s research and publication history over time. This also makes information sharing across different organizations’ systems easier and more accurate.

For more information on ORCID iD and its benefits, refer to the Research Website’s ORCID iD page