Arts, Social Science and Humanities (SSH) scholars produce important and influential, real-world work in academia—yet capturing full credit for it remains surprisingly difficult. Unlike STEM disciplines dominated by academic journal articles, SSH scholarship relies on a diverse range of outputs across the arts, humanities, and social sciences ranging from creative practices like gallery exhibitions, film, and live performances, to long-form critical monographs, book chapters, and public policy briefs. However, measuring the reach of these non-traditional textual contributions across the global research ecosystem often leads to fragmented records and administrative friction.
To address this, ORCID hosted a webinar with the European Alliance for Social Science and Humanities, incorporating key institutional insights from Poul Meier Melchiorsen (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3751-9821), Senior Consultant at Aalborg University Library and Danish ORCID Consortium Lead.
The session showed how embedding ORCID iDs into institutional workflows ensures that arts and SSH scholars receive full, accurate recognition for their diverse portfolio of work. By connecting global systems to individual researcher records, the webinar demonstrated how institutions and researchers can collaboratively protect, validate, and elevate SSH scholarship worldwide.
If you missed this webinar, you can watch the replay and download the materials.
Key takeaways: insights on SSH research trust, visibility, and impact assessment
- A Trust Marker—Not a “Truth Certificate”: As AI has increased the volume of unvalidated research with no clear provenance, persistent identifiers (PIDs) provide the infrastructure needed for institutions to make trusted assertions to researchers’ ORCID records. ORCID does not verify data itself, rather, it links a researcher’s validated identity to institution-asserted metadata with visual Trust Markers (green checkmarks), providing a clear way to separate institution-backed research from identity spoofing and academic fraud.
- Bridging the Gap for Broad SSH Outputs: Major citation databases capture only a fraction of SSH contributions. For example, monographs, curated volumes, and book chapters—which carry immense weight in SSH—are often indexed inconsistently or completely excluded by traditional databases. ORCID connects non-journal outputs, (including designs, images, interactive resources, film, and musical compositions) research projects, peer review, and collaborations into a unified trust layer alongside organizations (ROR).
- Aligning with CoARA and Research Assessment Reform: Coalitions like CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) are encouraging universities and funders to maximise the quality and impact of SSH research by basing assessment primarily on qualitative judgement of diverse outputs, practices and activities beyond journal publications—such as peer review, supervision, and training—alongside responsible use of quantitative indicators. While recognizing more diverse contributions can be challenging in traditional research frameworks, ORCID provides the digital framework needed to reliably link researchers to their work—allowing human evaluators to focus on reviewing quality rather than chasing down records.
- The Aalborg Model of Integration. Aalborg University (AAU) integrates ORCID directly into its Research information management system (CRIS/RIMS) to streamline Open Access workflows and amplify research discoverability. Because traditional citation databases often overlook core SSH outputs—such as books, chapters, and policy engagement—AAU incorporates ORCID data directly into the “Visibility” dimension of its internal Research & Innovation Indicator, which feeds directly into the university’s budget model. AAU found that SSH departments were among the most enthusiastic adopters, demonstrating how institutions can strategically incentivize persistent identifier use to drive ORCID adoption.
Participant engagement included discussion about implementation, integration, and profile management
The session sparked active engagement from attendees, particularly around the practical application of persistent identifiers to non-journal scholarship. Key discussion topics included:
- Repository Integration: How repositories use OAuth authenticated sign-ins to eliminate name ambiguity and enable seamless two-way data syncs—reading existing works from ORCID while automatically exporting validated institutional metadata (such as theses and dissertations) to scholar profiles.
- Managing Affiliation Changes: Best practices for adding end dates to employment records when scholars transition roles or switch institutions to ensure proper historical attribution. Rather than overwriting past records, institutions should close out former positions with end dates and add new entries for new roles, allowing ORCID to accurately reflect current versus past affiliations.
- Education & Degree Validation: How member institutions and CRIS/RIM systems serve as authoritative sources by writing degree and education credentials directly to scholar records, establishing trusted provenance that cannot be self-asserted.
- Optimizing Profiles: Practical guidance for researchers on building trustworthy records—prioritizing institution-validated affiliations and curating high-quality, representative outputs rather than focusing solely on output volume.
Next steps for elevating global SSH scholarship with ORCID: Actionable guidance for researchers, libraries, and university administrators
Translating these ideas into practice requires action from both individual scholars and the institutions that support them.
For arts and SSH researchers, the first step is taking ownership of your ORCID record. By registering for an ORCID iD and linking it to your institutional account, you can grant permission to trusted organizations, like your university and publishers, to update your record automatically. Moving beyond traditional publication lists to include non-traditional works across the arts and humanities ensures your record reflects the full scope and impact of your scholarly portfolio.
For libraries, research offices, and university administrators, adopting ORCID at your institution and adding data to your scholars’ records means you are taking an active role in building a more robust research ecosystem. By integrating local CRIS/RIM platforms and repositories with ORCID, institutions can become authoritative sources, adding validated affiliation histories, publications, and grant awards directly to their scholars’ records. These interoperable workflows reduce administrative friction, simplify reporting, and amplify the global reach of an institution’s SSH contributions.
Reach out to us and learn how your institution can become a member and access benefits like Researcher Connect to become a source of trusted institution-asserted metadata and amplify the impact of humanities and SSH scholarship worldwide.
