On behalf of the ORCID Board and staff, thank you to everyone who submitted nominations and participated in this year’s Board election process, especially the members of our Nominating Committee. With the election now concluded, the following have been elected to the ORCID Board to serve a three-year term starting in March 2026:
Nicolas Fressengeas, Professor, Université de Lorraine (Second Term, Member-Director, France)
Devika Madalli, Director, Information and Library Network Centre (Member-Director, India)
Heath Marks, CEO, Australian Access Federation (Second Term, Member-Director, Australia)
Steve Pinchotti, CEO, Altum (Second Term, Member-Director, USA)
Carly Robinson, Senior Policy Fellow, SPARC (Member-Director, USA)
Mercury Shitindo, Executive Director, Africa Bioethics Network (Researcher-Director, Kenya)
Please join us in congratulating the successful candidates and welcoming them to the ORCID Board.
ORCID holds Board member elections for about a third of the board seats every year, following an open nominations process. This year, the Nominating Committee was chaired with great dedication by ORCID Board Member Ellen Tise. The Committee reviewed 14 valid nominations for the Member-Director Board seats and 22 valid nominations for the Researcher-Director seat. The slate put forward by the Nominating Committee has experience in the areas the Board identified as top priorities for this year’s nomination cycle:
- track records of advocating on behalf of ORCID within their region and community;
- knowledgeable about ORCID and/or other scholarly infrastructure services;
- represents one of the following stakeholder groups: funders, government, or policy makers;
- financial expertise; and
- experience in organizational governance.
The Nominating Committee aimed to put forward a diverse slate of candidates driven by ORCID’s mission and inspired by ORCID’s strategic themes. The Committee was pleased to have put forward nominations from candidates with the skills and experience specifically requested to maintain the balance of the Board. The Committee also ensured that the Board, as per ORCID’s bylaws, retained a majority of representatives of non-profit members.
The Nominating Committee’s slate of candidates was reviewed by the Board at its September 2025 meeting, announced in this blog post by Ellen Tise, and sent directly to ORCID members via our newsletter and an email to all voting contacts in member organizations.
Of the 1,466 ORCID member organizations eligible to vote in the 2026 Board elections, 418 (28%) cast votes above the 10% participation threshold needed for the election to be valid. Of those members casting ballots, 402 (96.2%) voted in favor of the slate, 14 (3.3%) voted to abstain, and 2 (0.5%) voted against the ballot. The election results were certified at 14:08 GMT on 20 November 2025 and are available here.
Please accept my thanks if you participated in the election, and join me in congratulating our new Board members on their election.
