Why have a researcher id?

Many research authors have similar names, and as scholarly publishing increases, this ambiguity can hinder the discovery of research in scholarly databases and can result in publications being incorrectly attributed.

To tackle this problem, a number of organisations and publishers have developed a system of unique and persistent researcher identifiers. These identifiers also offer a tool to help researchers measure their impact.

UCT Libraries offers researchers support for these identifiers, such as ORCiD, Scopus Author Identifier, Web of Science ResearcherID and the Google Scholar Citations Profile.

A number of UCT's systems, including the electronic Research Administration (eRA) system and ZivaHub are designed to integrate with ORCID. We therefore encourage you to get your ORCID iD and link it to your eRA profile. Visit our ORCID page to learn more.