Increasing Global Participation is one of ORCID’s four priorities outlined in From Vision to Value: ORCID’s 2022–2025 Strategic Plan. We believe that the more fully populated, sufficiently complete ORCID records and integrated systems there are, the more value that stakeholders can gain from participating in ORCID, and in everything we do, our goal is to create the conditions to allow this to happen. Our Global Participation Fund (GPF), which is one of the initiatives of our Global Participation Program (GPP), is an important program to drive these outcomes by improving understanding and encouraging uptake of ORCID in under-represented countries in the Global South.
We are proud to share that in less than two years since launching the GPF, ORCID has provided nine grants under two different programs—Community Development and Outreach and Technical Integration. Now ORCID has selected six more recipients. The GPF grants are awarded on a biannual basis in the amount of US$5,000–20,000, with a duration of 12 months.
Grants from the Community Development and Outreach program support local partners in areas currently under-represented at ORCID to build robust Communities of Practice, encouraging adoption of ORCID both by researchers and at the institutional level. These grants can be used to support local outreach activities, training, and tech support resources for the creation and growth of ORCID consortia that serve those regions.
Grants from the Technical Integration program can be used to fund software development to build and update ORCID integrations in open-source systems. This will foster participation in ORCID in currently under-represented regions and support the creation of technical documentation, outreach, and support for resources created through the grants.
We are happy to announce that GPF grants have been awarded to the following organizations in our third round of awards:
Grants for Community Development and Outreach
Africa Bioethics Network
In Sub-Saharan Africa’s diverse bioethics realm, this project by the Africa Bioethics Network aims to harness ORCID’s vast services. It begins with a comprehensive ORCID awareness landscape, then aims to establish a dedicated Community of Practice for education and outreach. Finally, through strategic networking events, it will promote collaboration, envisioning a bioethics framework that’s robust, transparent, and interconnected, leveraging ORCID’s full capabilities.
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi)
The main goal of this project by IITDelhi is to integrate the ORCID public API with the Indian scholarly ecosystem. First, professionals managing journal sites and institutional repositories will be trained from each administrative zone of India. These trained zonal representatives, along with the members of the core team, will further train professionals in their respective zones. The project will develop bilingual technical resources in both video and text formats for release under public license.
Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST)
MUST aims to establish the Malawi ORCID Community, which will leverage the technological infrastructure and human resources that libraries have to catalyze the adoption and integration of ORCID into university and research institution systems. Using established forums, MUST will develop researchers’ and research managers’ understanding of the value of ORCID and run an advocacy campaign to motivate institutions, staff, and students to join ORCID.
Regional Maritime University (RMU)
RMU aims to introduce ORCID in Ghana and spur adoption through nationwide training of librarians, faculty members, postgraduate students, and researchers. The aim is to embark on in-person training of participants through workshops and seminars involving Ghana Library Association (GLA) and Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) in order to contribute to research visibility of researchers and academic institutions in Ghana.
Samarkand Branch of Tashkent State University of Economics
The focus of this project by Samarkand Branch of Tashkent State University of Economics will be on creating a community of ORCID users across the length and breadth of Uzbekistan. The project aims to create outreach and training programs across Uzbekistan to spread the message of ORCID and its robustness as a profiling/researcher credentialing system. The project expects to achieve two major outcomes in the first year: 1) onboard at least 25% of the country’s researchers to the ORCID system; 2) create top quality traction for ORCID.
Grants for Technical Integration
Lyrasis
Lyrasis aims to improve the ORCID functionality in DSpace, an open source repository software that has wide adoption in the Global South. At minimum, the project will correct ORCID-related issues in DSpace to allow users to log in with ORCID despite email addresses set to private in ORCID (with code from DSpaceCRIS), x false error message bugs on the ORCID Authorizations page, display ORCID iDs on work landing pages and indicate unauthenticated ORCID iDs, improve the way that updated works are added to ORCID records, and revoke access tokens when a user chooses to disconnect their ORCID iD from within DSpace.
Want to learn more about past awardees’ experience applying for GPF grants and progress on their initiatives? Register now for Spearheading Change Across the Globe: A showcase of ORCID Global Participation Fund on 13 March. You can also sign up for blog updates to learn about the next call for proposals for the GPF program, as well as spotlights from past awardees. Stay tuned for the next call for GPF proposals, which will announced in April 2024!
