ORCID initiative launched to resolve researcher name ambiguity

 
February 2010

The Open Researcher Contributor Identification (ORCID) initiative represents a community effort to establish an open, independent registry that is adopted and embraced as the industry’s de facto standard.

On December 1, 2009, leading members from the research community announced their intent to collaborate to resolve the author name ambiguity problem in scholarly communication. The Open Researcher Contributor Identification (ORCID) initiative represents a community effort to establish an open, independent registry that is adopted and embraced as the industry’s de facto standard.

Accurate identification of researchers and their work is one of the pillars for the transition from science to e-Science, wherein scholarly publications can be mined to spot links and ideas hidden in the ever-growing volume of scholarly literature. A disambiguated set of authors will allow new services and benefits to be built for the research community by all stakeholders in scholarly communication: from commercial actors to non-profit organizations, from governments to universities.

Thomson Reuters and Nature Publishing Group convened the first Name Identifier Summit in Cambridge, MA on Monday, November 9, where a cross-section of the research community explored approaches to address name ambiguity. With over 30 organizations already participating in ORCID, the initiative is moving ahead with broad stakeholder participation. Although the online registration form currently targets member organizations, ORCID intends to open channels for individual contribution in the future.

Persistent name ambiguity continues to disrupt scholarly networks, and industry leaders welcome the community effort to find and implement a global solution: "At the dawn of a new age of discoveries in physics, where experiments that probe the structure of the universe are carried out by international teams of scientists that number in the thousands, correct attribution of research contribution is of crucial importance. I welcome this joint initiative of stakeholders in scholarly communication to work together on these issues." said Prof. Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN.