The ORCID Registry is designed to have users provide their iDs to organizations using OAuth, which ensures that the correct iD is collected for each researcher. We discourage organizations from adding ORCID iDs to their systems based on a search for researchers by name. However, it can be helpful to find out how many researchers at your organization have ORCID iDs, which can be done via the API. Suggestions for searching by organization are given below.
For an introduction to searching, how to get an access token, how to understand your search results, and details of other fields that can be searched, please see our Searching the registry API Tutorial
Search by name and DOI
When checking to see if an individual has an ORCID record, we recommend searching by both their name and the DOI of one or more of their recent works. This should result in just the record of the researcher you are looking for, and not records of anyone else who shares the same name.
An example call to search for all records with the name "Laurel Haak" and either the DOI 10.1087/20120404 or the DOI 10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.1115124:
Method: GET
Content-type: application/vnd.orcid+xml
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/search?q=family-name:Haak+AND+given-names:Laurel+AND+digital-object-ids:%2210.1087/20120404%22+OR+digital-object-ids:%2210.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.1115124’%22Search by affiliation
The affiliation fields can be searched using either the name of the affiliation or the organization's unique Ringgold ID or GRID ID. (You can find your organization's Ringgold ID in the Ringgold Identify Database and your organization's GRID ID in GRID.)
Search by organization name
Method: GET Content-type: application/vnd.orcid+xml
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/search/?q=affiliation-org-name:"University+of+Johannesburg" Or for an exact match
Method: GET
Content-type: application/vnd.orcid+xml
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/search/?q=affiliation-org-name:(%22Boston%20University%22)Search by GRID ID
An example call to search for all records with the GRID ID grid.5509.9 (University of Tampere):
Method: GET
Content-type: application/vnd.orcid+xml
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/search/?q=grid-org-id:grid.5509.9Search by Ringgold ID
An example call to search for all records with the Ringgold ID 1438 (University of California, Berkeley):
Method: GET
Content-type: application/vnd.orcid+xml
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/search/?q=ringgold-org-id:1438Search by email domain
You can use the API to search for researchers by email domain. Keep in mind that around 97% of email addresses in ORCID are private and any records with a private or trusted-access email address will not be returned in this search.
An example call to search for all records with an @orcid.org email address:
Method: GET
Content-type: application/vnd.orcid+xml
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/search/?q=email:*@orcid.orgSearch results returned in CSV format
Search results can also be returned in CSV format. As part of the call you can specify the output columns from a list of available fields below:
orcid
email
given-name
family-name
given-and-family-names
credit-name
other-name
current-institution-affiliation-name
past-institution-affiliation-name
Using your credentials you need to specify the header to be ‘text/csv’. As part of the search call, you need to add the fields that you require on the output to the query too.
An example call for a member searching on a ringgold ID with the required output including ORCID, name and affiliation.
Method: GET
Content-type: text/csv
Authorization type and Access token: Bearer [stored access token]
URL: https://api.orcid.org/v3.0/csv-search/?q=ringgold-org-id:385488&fl=orcid,given-names,family-name,current-institution-affiliation-name,'You can also complete the search using your browser. The URL is constructed the same way but you do not need to use any API credentials. Please note that this can only be completed using the public API.
Below is an example call using the public API searching by organisation name with the ORCID, given names, family names, current institution affiliation name and past institution affiliation name as the desired output.
https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/csv-search/?q=affiliation-org-name:ORCID&fl=orcid,given-names,family-name,current-institution-affiliation-name,past-institution-affiliation-nameBelow is another example call using the public API searching by different variations of the organizations name.
https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/csv-search/?q=affiliation-org-name:(“University of Plymouth” OR “Plymouth University”)Was this helpful?