ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identification) is a non-profit organization that promotes the use of its unique digital identifier to connect researchers with their science contributions over time and across changes of name, location and institutional affiliation.  Using ORCID reduces the administrative burden on investigators of entering the same information in multiple places when applying to different funding agencies.

ORCID benefits researchers by providing a lifelong identifier that automatically links them to their past and recent papers, avoids the confusion caused by similar last names, enhances the discoverability of their papers and simplifies creating biosketches for grant applications (as evidenced in SciENcv).

eRA began allowing researchers to link their ORCID iD with their eRA Commons profile back in 2017.   Starting in 2020, NIH, CDC, NSF and AHRQ started requiring individuals supported by training, fellowship, career development, and other research education awards to have an ORCID iD linked to their personal electronic Research Administration (eRA) account.  Other US federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, NASA, USDA and the Department of Transportation are encouraging or requiring the use of ORCID for all investigators.

NIH is now encouraging everybody, from graduate students to senior scientists, to register today for an ORCID account (if you do not have one already) and link it to your eRA Commons personal profile.  The information that NIH gleans from tracking scientists along their career path will help inform policy decisions to better the biomedical research workforce, a ‘tracking outcomes’ need emphasized by the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director and the White House’s National Science and Technology Council.

Registration is easy.   If you need assistance in getting an ORCID account or linking it to your eRA Commons profile, please, contact Melodi Moore in Research Services, Research Education.