How do I get “/read-public” access token?

Anyone with public or member API credentials can receive a /read-public access token. To obtain a token, you make a call to the ORCID API token endpoint.

This process is often referred to as the client-credentials OAuth flow, or 2-step OAuth.

An example call to obtain an access token to read public data on the sandbox -- replace the placeholders with your credentials (be sure to remove the brackets.

URL=https://sandbox.orcid.org/oauth/token
  HEADER: Accept: application/json
  METHOD: POST
  DATA: 
    client_id=[Your public API client ID]
    client_secret=[Your public API secret]
    grant_type=client_credentials
    scope=/read-public

You will then be returned an access token similar to the following. The token returned is long-lived (not expiring for approximately 20 years) and can be used multiple times to retrieve public data from ORCID records. 

{"access_token":"4bed1e13-7792-4129-9f07-aaf7b88ba88f","token_type":"bearer",
"refresh_token":"2d76d8d0-6fd6-426b-a017-61e0ceda0ad2","expires_in":631138518,
"scope":"/read-public","orcid":null}

Note: All tokens with the /authenticate scope now also have /read-public scope included. If you use only the /authenticate scope, you can use the stored access tokens to read public data without needing to again obtain an access token.