This International Open Access Week, we are pleased to announce the release of the 2026 ORCID Public Data File, now available for complete download on Figshare and explorable on Google BigQuery. (Note: To learn more about how to navigate the Public Data File, visit our Google BigQuery information page. We simply ask that if you use this tool that you give attribution to Digital Science and link back to this page.)
The annual release of our Public Data File stands as a testament to ORCID’s unwavering commitment to our ten founding principles. Our seventh founding principle states:
All data contributed to ORCID by researchers or claimed by them will be available in standard formats for free download (subject to the researchers’ own privacy settings) that are updated once a year and released under a CC0 waiver.
The depth and reliability of this dataset do not exist in a vacuum; they are made possible through the continuous, active participation of the entire scholarly ecosystem. Every time researchers claim their work, institutions update affiliation records, funders link grant awards, scholars from the arts, social sciences and humanities register non-textual and creative outputs, and publishers deposit validated ORCID iDs alongside published metadata, they contribute to a more transparent, interconnected, and trustworthy record of human creation and knowledge.
PIDs in practice: How 2026 research leverages ORCID’s Public Data File
The annual Public Data File isn’t just an archive—it’s active infrastructure. Every year, researchers, bibliometricians, and developers draw on ORCID’s open data to address systemic challenges across the scholarly ecosystem.
In a 2026 preprint, OmniReview: A Large-scale Benchmark and LLM-enhanced Framework for Realistic Reviewer Recommendation (Huang et al., 2026), researchers integrated public ORCID record data to train an LLM framework that matches candidate peer reviewers with submitted papers while automatically screening for past co-authorships and institutional conflicts of interest.
Training algorithms on ORCID Registry data helps accurately credit authors—even those with common names or changing affiliations—by applying learned patterns to un-linked bibliographic records.
Now with ORCID Registry data hosted on Google BigQuery, bibliometricians can query millions of public records instantly with SQL. Researchers use this access to run large-scale analyses on international researcher mobility, cross-disciplinary collaboration patterns, and institutional grant adoption without needing to process terabytes of raw local XML files.
Of course, researchers maintain full control over this process with the Visibility settings of their ORCID profile data, choosing which details remain public for algorithms to read and which stay private.
Get started with the 2026 dataset today
The true power of open data lies in the collective effort behind it. Every validated publication, grant award, and non-textual contribution added to ORCID enriches the global knowledge graph for everyone.
Ready to dive in? Access the 2026 Public Data File now on Figshare or start running SQL queries via Google BigQuery. If you’d like to learn more about how your organization can support robust PID adoption and improve metadata quality, explore our Public Data File documentation.
High-quality open data relies on strong integrations at the source. Organizational membership empowers research institutions, publishers, funders, and associations to embed ORCID iDs directly into their systems, access premium API features, and receive dedicated technical support. Learn how ORCID Membership can benefit your institution, and see if your region has an active ORCID Consortium to access shared resources and reduced membership fees.
