Demonstrate Your Contributions with ORCID

What is ORCID?

An ORCID iD is an alphanumeric code, kind of like a social security number, that links you to your professional activities and distinguishes you from other researchers. Lane Library and the other libraries at Stanford recommend that every Stanford-affiliated researcher claim their ORCID.

Registering for an ORCID iD will:
  1. Make your work more discoverable by others.
  2. Distinguish you from other researchers with similar names.
  3. Ensure you are connected to your scholarly contributions throughout your career, no matter how your name appears in publications.
  4. Help you create biosketches and other research profiles more efficiently.
  5. Help you fulfill requirements from research funders, scholarly publishers, and other entities.
  6. Provide you with a single login you can use across a variety of research-related tools.

Your ORCID iD is universal, meaning that it is not tied to an individual institution or database. Even if your name changes, your ORCID iD will remain the same. For this reason, scholarly publishers, research funders, and other organizations are increasingly adopting and supporting ORCID. An ORCID iD can also function as a key, unlocking a chain of research-related tools. For example, you can use your ORCID iD to auto-populate profile systems like SciENcv, and log into tools like Dryad.

The box below serves as a very brief introduction to ORCID, with subsequent pages providing more information about how you can register, add work to, and make use of your ORCID iD. If you have additional questions or would like to schedule a consultation related to ORCID, contact your liaison librarian.

Distinguish Yourself with ORCID

ORCID is an alphanumeric code, kind of like a social security number, that identifies you as a contributor to scholarly work.  Lane Library and the other libraries at Stanford recommend that every Stanford-affiliated researcher claim their ORCID.


Why claim your ORCID iD?
  1. Your ORCID iD is unique to you. Not only will ORCID help distinguish you from researchers with the same or similar names, but your ORCID iD will remain the same, even if your name or affiliation changes, maintaining the connection to the work you've done.
  2. ORCID helps you demonstrate all of your contributions. Using ORCID, you can demonstrate your contributions to a wide range of scholarly works, from journal articles and book chapters to posters and presentations.
  3. ORCID helps you connect and integrate. Once you have claimed your ORCID, you can use it to log into and connect a wide variety of profile systems and other tools. For example, Dryad uses ORCID for login and both the uploader and any co-authors can add their ORCID to published datasets.
  4. It is required. A growing body of scholarly publishers and funding agencies have begun to require that researchers list their ORCID iD as part of when submitting a new proposal or work.

Contact your liaison librarian if you have any questions about setting up or using your ORCID iD. For more information about maintaining your researcher identity, see our Research Impact guide

There are a variety of ways to claim your ORCID iD and link it to your Stanford credentials. Below we've listed what we think are the most straightforward steps. If you have questions or would like to set up a consultation, please contact your liaison librarian.

Claim your ORCID iD

  1. Register for an ORCID iD on ORCID's registration page. We recommend setting your default visibility setting to "Everyone" so ORCID can help you connect to other profile systems and tools.
  2. Connect your ORCID to your Stanford credentials and authorize Stanford as a trusted organization within ORCID by visiting this authorization page and completing the necessary steps.

Add information to ORCID

  1. Add information about yourself, such as your education and place of employment.
  2. Works, such as journal articles, can be added manually or one at a time using identifiers such DOIs or PMIDs. However, we recommend adding them from another system, such as CrossRef Metadata Search, DataCite, and Europe PMC. 
  3. Remember, you can add posters, presentations, datasets, and other types of work to your ORCID profile. Show off your contributions!

Why maintain an ORCID profile when you're already maintaining similar profiles elsewhere? Because you can actually use ORCID to connect to many of these systems and share content between them!

One such system is SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae), the profile system for anyone who applies for, receives, or is associated with research investments from federal agencies like NIH and NSF. Researchers can use SciENcv to create and maintain biosketches that are submitted with grant applications and annual reports.

Link your ORCID and SciENcv

  1. Log into your MyNCBI account. If you do not already have an account, you can log in using your Stanford credentials by clicking on "See more third party sign-in options" and selecting Stanford.
  2. When you see your dashboard, click on "Manage SciENcv" in the "SciENcv" box.
  3. Click "edit" in the grey box. Then complete the required information. Under "optional information", click to add your ORCID. If necessary, log into ORCID to complete the integration.
  4. Congratulations! You will now be able to pull from your ORCID profile to populate SciENcv documents!

For more information, see this video from NCBI or contact your liaison librarian 

In addition to profile systems like SciENcv, ORCID also integrates with a variety of other research-related tools giving you essentially a single sign and enabling you to share information about your contributions throughout your research toolchain. Below we've highlighted some tools that connect with ORCID that are widely used at Stanford Medicine.


Dryad, the open data repository, requires ORCID iDs for login. Once you've logged in and published a dataset through Dryad, you can be added to your ORCID profile as a work. Dryad also allows you to add ORCID iDs for co-authors.
Overleaf, the collaborative LaTeX editor allows you to login with your ORCID iD and connect your ORCID to your current account. Once your account is linked, your ORCID iD will be included when you submit work to participating publishers. 
Protocols.io is a repository for recording and sharing up-to-date research methods and protocols. Connecting your ORCID iD with your account allows protocols.io to post information about your published protocols onto the "Works" section of your ORCID record.