One of the challenges our member organizations routinely face is identifying existing ORCID records for their researchers. But with Researcher Connect, a feature available to ORCID member organizations, those members can now prompt their researchers to connect their ORCID records with their home institutional systems. Once connected, members can ensure proper affiliation by updating their researchers’ ORCID records with employment affiliations and give credit to researchers with other research outputs, IDs, and other relevant data stored in a system.
Connecting researchers’ ORCID records with ORCID member systems provides several benefits: members can follow researchers’ careers and help improve their researchers’ visibility, as well as the discoverability of their outputs. ORCID-integrated systems help create positive feedback loops for both researchers and ORCID member institutions; as researchers are relieved of time-consuming administrative burdens like entering profile data into funding applications or manuscript submission systems, they are free to spend more time on their research.
Highlights
- ORCID members have access to a new benefit called Researcher Connect.
- Researcher Connect allows ORCID members with an active integration to notify affiliated but unconnected researchers about connecting home institutional systems to ORCID records.
- Once connected, researchers save time and effort by automatically adding affiliation data to their records.
- Affiliation data added through Researcher Connect contains Trust Markers, demonstrating that the information is authoritative and trustworthy.
Product development efforts drive improvements of metadata quality found in ORCID records
Many of ORCID’s product developments are driven by the goal of making it easier for users to improve the quality and completeness of metadata found in ORCID records. For example, in 2024 we launched the verified institutional email domains to help researchers demonstrate their association with an institution.
Since the launch of our verified institutional email domains, more than four million active ORCID records now have verified email domains, adding more Trust Markers to researchers’ professional affiliations and ultimately strengthening the scholarly record as that data gets propagated throughout the global research ecosystem.
The University of Oxford reported that it was especially early career researchers who took advantage of adding verified institutional domains. “[The] verified link with the institution, gives a feeling that this makes it ‘official’ and tracks as part of the CV element that the ORCID profile offers a user,” said Jason Partridge, Collections Support Senior Manager at the Bodleian Libraries at University of Oxford.
Researcher Connect continues this work by prompting affiliated but unconnected researchers to connect home institutional systems to their ORCID records, as long as their institution is an ORCID member with an active integration. Once connected, researchers can save time and effort by automatically adding affiliations to their record and Trust Markers from an institution showing that this information is authoritative and trustworthy.
How Researcher Connect works to help researchers make their records work for them
When an ORCID member organization enables Researcher Connect, notifications are sent to the ORCID inbox or by email to all eligible researchers based on their notification frequency settings. Eligible researchers are those with a verified email domain with the institution but who have not connected their ORCID iD to the home institutional system.
This notification includes a link to the member’s ORCID landing page to read more about connecting their ORCID record to the institution. From within that page there is a link where the researcher can grant permission to connect the system to their ORCID account. Once connected, the member will be able to add an affiliation (as well as any other works or activities) to the researcher’s ORCID record.
For researchers, Researcher Connect notifications let you know that your institution is an ORCID member and can add validated affiliations to your record. This institutional support helps you make your records work more easily for your benefit. Once connected, institutions can send updates to researchers’ ORCID records directly, reducing manual data entry. A connected, current ORCID record helps the researcher’s institution and others in the greater research ecosystem discover research outputs more easily.
This feature will now empower all ORCID members with the same capability of easily adding Trust Markers to their researchers’ ORCID records via validated affiliations. As their researchers link to other systems using ORCID, members’ affiliations will be properly attributed as the data is propagated across the research ecosystem.
Pilot partners test Researcher Connect to ensure success
Before launching Researcher Connect to our wider membership, we conducted a pilot with seven ORCID member organizations. The figure below shows how the University of Oxford saw a significant increase in connected researchers after notifications were sent. These users now have Oxford affiliation Trust Markers and a list of works from the ORCID integration.
We want to thank our pilot partners at Bodleian Libraries at University of Oxford, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology, Aalborg University, Aarhus University, Imperial College London, and University of Vienna for their participation and feedback. Through their partnership in this pilot, we were able to connect over 5,700 users and update their records during the pilot period.
All ORCID member organizations can now enable Researcher Connect
If you are an ORCID member institution interested in enabling Researcher Connect, please review our documentation page and contact your Engagement Support Lead to get started. Making sure researchers know why you’re implementing ORCID and how it can benefit them is key to success! We have compiled best practices for how to direct researchers to member ORCID integrations.
Not a member yet? Visit our member page to learn about our membership types, access, levels and fees.
If you are a researcher interested in receiving Researcher Connect notifications, make sure to add a verified institutional domain to your record and review your notifications preferences. Be on the lookout for a notification from your member institution!
