What is an ORCID iD?

ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. Identifiers issued by ORCID are known as ORCID IDs.

ORCID enables a transparent linking mechanism between ORCID and other current researcher ID schemes. These identifiers, and the relationships among them, can be linked to the researcher's output to enhance the scientific discovery process and to improve the efficiency of research funding and collaboration within the research community.

ORCID provides two core functions: (1) a registry to obtain a unique person identifier and manage a record of activities, and (2) APIs that support system-to-system communication and authentication.

External information

What is ORCID?
ORCID on wikipedia.