An ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier) provides you with a persistent digital identifier which is unique to you and remains with you throughout your career, even if you move to another institution. It is comprised of 16 digits and is assigned by the ORCID Registry.

With an ORCID you can ensure information about your research activities such as publications and grants are correctly associated with you.

You can maintain all of your key information in one place and have complete control over what information is displayed publicly.

An ORCID is now essential when you apply for external funding, and publishers' systems increasingly connect with ORCID.

How do I get an ORCID and link it to SOAS Research Online?

Creating your ORCID is free and takes a couple of minutes. Visit the ORCID registration page and add the essential information.

Having your ORCID linked with SOAS Research Online is very simple. Just watch the short video below and follow the steps. This will allow records of your outputs to be transferred between the two systems either manually or automatically (you can amend the settings within SOAS Research Online).

Do I have to add information to my ORCID record?

It is possible to just use your ORCID as a unique digital identifier, without adding additional information to your ORCID record.

However, it is a good idea to add different forms of your name, your current affiliation(s) and link to your SOAS web profile.

Adding fuller details of your publications and past funding awards will save you time in the future as you can use this information with the increasing numbers of systems that connect to ORCID.

How do I add information about my publications to my ORCID record?

You can provide permissions for ORCID to import articles from sources such as Web of Science and Crossref through the ‘Link Works’ option. This means that ORCID will pick up future publications automatically but it may not find them all. Selecting Crossref is a good choice.

You can also add new works to your ORCID manually - on the Works header, click +Add, then Add manually.

See the ORCID website for further details.