A “research resource” is a term that describes a wide variety of facilities used to support results from research activities, such as facilities that house specialized equipment, aircraft or instruments used on an aircraft in field campaigns, or repositories and field stations that house physical collections. ORCID can help improve acknowledgement of resource use and provide a better understanding of the impact of the work undertaken by researchers using them.
Benefits of ORCID for research resources
Resource sponsoring or hosting organizations can make reporting processes more straightforward and reliable by embedding ORCID iDs in the application process to create and share connections between users and resources. This enables the sponsoring organization to:
- Reduce the burden on researchers by allowing them to draw information from their ORCID record to auto-populate standard fields in the proposal submission form, and by adding award information to their ORCID record so they can use it when publishing papers and datasets.
- Make resources citable by standardizing its name with a persistent identifier and using a resolvable identifier for each awarded proposal.
- Share information about the research associated with the resource by posting proposal award information and associated identifiers in a publicly accessible database.
- Improve the speed and completeness of post-award reporting for researchers by using the ORCID API to receive updates on their activities.
Types of research resources
There are many types of research resources, from single-use reagents to international collaboratives with dedicated facilities, and persistent identifiers can be used for all of them.
The resource types described in the table below require a touchpoint with the researcher where their ORCID iD can be collected using an authentication process, typically through a specific proposal process or credential to access.
| Resource type | Definition | Examples |
| Infrastructure | A facility, building, or other physical space used to perform research. | Neutron spallation source, animal facility, data enclave, archaeological site, telescope array, ships, planes, farms, laboratories. |
| Collection | An object or group of objects used for research purposes; can be tangible or digital. | Ocean mission, field campaign, collaborative data sets or resources, rare book collection; museum collection, biological specimen collection. |
| Equipment | Hardware used for research purposes. | Microscope, computers, glassware, samples, materials. |
| Service | Services used for research purposes. | Proteomics analysis, computing services, data analysis, logistical support, legal services, copyediting, expert or staff advisement. |
Join your colleagues in a community of practice
Research resources is still a new offering for ORCID. To ensure a common understanding of the information gaps and administrative challenges for research resources, we collaborated with the resources community through the User Facilities and Publications Working Group to ensure we had a comprehensive design. With our community, we defined terms, described research workflows from time of application for resources use through research publication to reporting, and identified touchpoints with researchers. The group also proposed two proof-of-concept pilot projects, with the aim of testing feasibility of their findings in the broader research resources community.
We invite you to read the report published by the (disbanded) User Facilities and Publications Working Group and consider participating in developing a community of practice: learning with other research resource sponsors about how to use and benefit from persistent identifiers by including ORCID in your research workflows.
Contact us for more information.