Membership Agreement
As a community endeavor and in the interest of equity to other members who have signed the standard membership agreement, ORCID generally does not negotiate and make modifications to its membership agreement. The current agreement has been developed with broad community input over ORCID’s years of operation and reflects a fair allocation of risk between the parties whilst enabling us to sustain our services at affordable fee levels for members around the world.
In rare situations ORCID will consider minor modifications to the membership agreement only when the member is legally unable to accept the contract provision as drafted (for example, a government entity that is legally not permitted to accept a governing law provision outside its home jurisdiction). In addition, as negotiation of the membership agreement incurs administrative and legal costs for ORCID, in order to keep our basic membership fees as low as possible, we are only able to offer this service to premium members.
Signature Authority
Please note that only ORCID’s Executive Director executes contracts with financial commitments on behalf of ORCID. The Director of Finance & Operations and the Director of Engagement are authorized to execute certain non-financial commitments on ORCID’s behalf. Under no circumstances do ORCID directors, officers or staff sign contracts in their personal capacity or assume personal liability for ORCID contracts.
ORCID is committed to protecting the personal data and privacy of its directors, officers and staff. Accordingly, ORCID persons are not permitted to provide personal information (other than name, title, work telephone and work email address) in connection with ORCID-related contracts. ORCID, Inc. is a legal entity incorporated under Delaware law in the US and its certificate of incorporation is available here.
All contracts will be signed using eSignatures, unless the contracting party can demonstrate that these would not be legally valid for the contract in question.
Invoicing Policy
Membership invoices are automatically sent by email to both the main contact and administrative contact on file for the organization. As a small, non-profit organization with our resources dedicated to fulfillment of our own mission for our shared research community, we strive to keep administrative costs low. As such, we are unable to meet requests to send invoices by hardcopy or submit via supplier portals or procurement systems. Further, we request that you adhere to the following:
- For domestic US payments, we prefer payment by ACH transfer. Domestic wires and credit card payments, although accepted, incur additional fees. We strongly discourage the mailing of physical checks as these may result in delays in the application of your payment.
- For international payments, we prefer payment by wire transfer, and all payments must be denominated in U.S. dollars. Credit card payments, although accepted, cause us to incur additional fees.
- In accordance with our Membership Agreement, ORCID is to receive gross membership fees, which would mean members increase the fees to be paid for any withholding taxes and transaction fees incurred, including wire transfer fees. In addition, if you are paying late, please include the charge for late payment, equal to 1.5% of fees due.
- You are required to include our invoice number as a reference against all payments to ensure proper application of your remittance.
Payment Instructions
For financial transactions, including payment of membership fees, please use the following:
Account Title: ORCID, Inc.
Address:
Domestic ACH:
Bank:
PNC Bank, N.A.
249 Fifth Avenue,
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
USA
Account Number: XXXXXX8131 (please contact billing at ORCID for full account if needed)
ABA/Routing Number: 054000030
International Wires:
Account Number: XXXXXX8131 (please contact billing at ORCID for full account if needed)
Swift Code: PNCCUS33
ABA/Routing Number: 031000053
Supplementary Request Policy
ORCID receives a variety of requests from members regarding completion of internal procedures for verification of ORCID, Inc. (“ORCID”) as an organization, validation of authorized individuals, or confirmation of aspects of our operations, including banking information. Following is the list of documentation ORCID is able to provide to members in fulfillment of these types of requests:
Publicly Available on our Website
- Certificate of Incorporation (Delaware): This document evidences the proper creation and authorization of ORCID, Inc. as a corporate legal entity, as validated by the U.S. state of incorporation, Delaware
- United States (“U.S.”) Federal Form 990: This document is a required compliance document for tax exempt organizations filed annually with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (”IRS”), an oversight and enforcement branch of the U.S. government. Publicly available, this form discloses ORCID’s financial information for the year, as well as all officers and directors, including authorized individuals), and details on policies, procedures and practices of ORCID: https://info.orcid.org/our-governance/;
Provided to All Members Upon Request
- IRS Determination Letter: Confirmation of our status as a tax-exempt non–profit organization under section 501(c)3 of the U.S. Federal IRS Code
- IRS Form SS-4 EIN Assignment: Confirmation of our U.S. IRS Employer Identification Number
- U.S. Form W-9: Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification form, verifying the identification number established for ORCID
- Bank Confirmation Letter (PNC): Confirmation of the particulars of the bank account to which membership fee payments may be made
- ORCID, Inc. Sole Provider Letter: Letter confirming that ORCID is the sole provider of the ORCID registry and associated services
Depending on the request, we may be able to fulfill certain additional requests that based on member requirements cannot be fulfilled with the information available above. However, ORCID is required to charge an additional administrative fee to cover our costs in fulfilling such requests. Contact [email protected] for further information.
Further, in order to protect their privacy, under no circumstances will we provide personal information about any of our staff (home addresses, identification documents, identification numbers, etc.).
Note that satisfaction of the variety of members’ internal procedures driving the need for the documentation listed above, or other requirements as we may or may not be able to fulfil, does not exempt or otherwise introduce a delay in timely payment of membership fees as stipulated in the member agreement.
We appreciate your understanding of these policies.