ORCID iDs at Springer Nature

Attach your identity to your research and receive recognition for your work

What is ORCID?

An ORCID identifier (ORCID iD) is a unique, personal, persistent identifier for researchers that distinguishes you from every other researcher and enables you to link your publications to your unique record, ensuring your work is recognized.

Getting an ORCID iD is free and easy to do through the ORCID registration page: orcid.org/register

ORCID is an international, interdisciplinary, open, and not-for-profit organization created in 2010 for the benefit of a range of stakeholders, including researchers, research organizations, research funders, and publishers. Springer and Nature Publishing Group were amongst the founders of ORCID.

Watch the short video or download the poster to get a quick overview.

What an ORCID iD can be used for?

More about ORCID

Why should I register for an ORCID iD?

Many researchers share the same name, while others’ names might change their name or publish under different names during their career. With an ORCID iD, your name will be consistently and correctly associated with your research work and affiliation(s). 

If you use your iD during the submission process and grant Crossref permission, together we will update your ORCID record whenever you publish an article with us.

Registering for an ORCID iD is very quick and easy to do – it takes about 30 seconds.


Do I need an institutional email address to register for an ORCID iD?

You don’t need to have an official affiliation and there is no set of requirements to qualify as a researcher.  Personal and/or institutional emails are both valid for use in your ORCID account.


Can I also use an ORCID iD for books and chapters I publish with Springer Nature?

Absolutely! In November 2015 Springer Nature announced that they would be the first publisher to enable all Springer and Palgrave Macmillan authors and editors to apply their ORCID iDs to academic books and chapters.

Where do I indicate my ORCID iD?

During the article submission process there is a clearly marked place within the manuscript submission system for the corresponding author to input their ORCID iD. We will subsequently collect and store the authenticated iDs so that next time your use our system your information will already be available.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD, there is a link to the page on orcid.org where you can very easily register for one at orcid.org/register. This process is quick and absolutely free!


How will others know what my ORCID iD is?

On your published work at Springer Nature, the ORCID icon will appear next to your name. This shows that you have validated your ORCID iD during the manuscript submission process. The ORCID icon is displayed on the pdf as well as on the website. 

Clicking on the icon will take readers to your record on orcid.org, allowing them to discover information about you and your work that you choose to make publicly accessible. 

We also tag your ORCID iD in our PDF metadata, MARC records for librarians and internal metadata so it is machine readable.


Are there other identifiers that researchers can use?

Yes, and you can enhance your ORCID record with your professional information from other systems by linking it to your other identifiers (such as Scopus Author ID or ResearcherID).

The Springer Nature ORCID mandate trial

Why did you do this?

We wanted to support our authors in sharing their discoveries and helping them to receive proper credit for doing so. In April 2017 we introduced a trial to mandate ORCID identifiers for corresponding authors of primary research manuscripts at 46 journals across our portfolios. The trial ran for six months, and the mandate was applied at different stages of the manuscript processing: 14 Nature-branded research journals required iDs at acceptance, while 10 BioMed Central (BMC) and 22 Springer journals did so at initial submission. Corresponding authors were able to share their ORCID identifier in the manuscript tracking system (via the ORCID API); without this step the submission would not proceed to the next stage.

Results

The response from the research communities was a positive one. There were no instances reported of authors who refused to provide an ORCID identifier at acceptance for the 14 Nature-branded journals, and no observable drop in submissions to the BMC and Springer journals participating in the trial that could be related to the mandate. For more detailed results from the trial see our guest blog post on the ORCID web site.

Following the success of the trial, we have kept the requirements for the trial titles, and have expanded the number of journals that require an ORCID iD for submission to include all the Nature-branded research journals and all the Nature Reviews journals.


Which journals require an ORCID iD?

Journals that require an ORCID iD are:

From Nature Research

Nature Astronomy; Nature Biomedical Engineering; Nature Biotechnology; Nature Catalysis; Nature Cell Biology; Nature Chemical Biology; Nature Chemistry; Nature Climate Change; Nature Ecology & Evolution; Nature Electronics; Nature Energy; Nature Genetics; Nature Geoscience; Nature Human Behaviour; Nature Immunology; Nature Machine Intelligence; Nature Materials; Nature Medicine; Nature Metabolism; Nature Methods; Nature Microbiology; Nature Nanotechnology; Nature Neuroscience; Nature Photonics; Nature Physics; Nature Plants; Nature Structural and Molecular Biology; Nature Sustainability; Nature Reviews Cancer; Nature Reviews Cardiology; Nature Reviews Chemistry; Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology; Nature Reviews Disease Primers; Nature Reviews Drug Discovery; Nature Reviews Endocrinology; Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology; Nature Reviews Genetics; Nature Reviews Immunology; Nature Reviews Materials; Nature Reviews Microbiology; Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology; Nature Reviews Nephrology; Nature Reviews Neurology; Nature Reviews Neuroscience; Nature Reviews Physics; Nature Reviews Rheumatology; Nature Reviews Urology.

From BMC

BMC Evolutionary Biology; BMC Genetics; BMC Microbiology; BMC Neuroscience; BMC Veterinary Research; BMC Anesthesiology; BMC Cardiovascular Disorders; BMC Medical Genetics; BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making; BMC Women’s Health.

From Springer

Agroforestry Systems; Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics; Breast Cancer Research and Treatment; Clinical and Experimental Medicine; Clinical and Translational Oncology; Comparative Clinical Pathology; Environmental Chemistry Letters; European Archives of ORL; European Journal of Forest Research; International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management; Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology; Journal of Molecular Neuroscience; Journal of Neuro-Oncology; Lung; Medical Oncology; Molecular Neurobiology; Neurological Sciences; Neurosurgical Review; Obesity Surgery; Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio-Technology; Techniques in Coloproctology.

From SpringerOpen

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How is ORCID integrated at Springer Nature?

Springer Nature is the first major publisher to be awarded the Authenticate, Collect, Display, and Connect badges for ORCID’s integration and engagement program, Collect & Connect, developed to streamline the integration process and foster a shared user experience.

We have implemented ORCID iDs in book, proceedings and journal workflows so that authors and editors benefit from all the advantages of ORCID. Submitted and verified ORCID iDs appear on the article PDF, website and in the underlying metadata XML. This enables authors with an ORCID iD to authorize Crossref to automatically push information about their published work to their ORCID record every time you publish using your ORCID iD.


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For more information please see

Additional information

ORCID, what, why, how?

Springer ORCID information

Information on ORCID iDs and Proceedings