Persistent author identifiers are the unglamorous foundation of every credible researcher metric. They resolve name ambiguity, link outputs reliably across systems, and make automated reconciliation possible. The two identifiers a research office must understand are the Scopus Author ID and ORCID. This article explains what each is, how to find them, and how a RIMS uses them.
What is a Scopus Author ID?
The Scopus Author ID is a persistent identifier assigned by the Scopus database to each disambiguated author profile. When Scopus indexes a publication, it groups outputs that appear to be by the same author and gives that author a stable identifier — a string of digits unique to that researcher in Scopus. This means a researcher's full output history, citations, and h-index in Scopus can be retrieved with that one identifier, regardless of how the author's name was spelled across papers.
Scopus Author IDs are created automatically. Researchers can claim and correct their profile through the Scopus author feedback process — important when the automatic algorithm has split one researcher across two profiles, or merged two into one.
What is an ORCID iD?
ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a not-for-profit, cross-publisher, persistent identifier for researchers. Each ORCID iD is a 16-digit number (often shown as four groups, e.g. 0000-0001-2345-6789). Unlike Scopus Author ID, ORCID is registered by the researcher, controlled by them, and recognised across publishers, funders, and institutional systems globally. It is the closest thing to a universal researcher identifier.
How to find an ORCID iD
If you know who you are looking for, the simplest approach is the public ORCID registry: search by name and affiliation. For researchers in your own institution, a RIMS that ingests ORCID typically surfaces each researcher's ORCID iD on their profile automatically — see our dedicated walkthrough in How to find an ORCID iD.
How to find a Scopus Author ID
Search the Scopus author database (institutional access required) by name and affiliation. The result page shows the Scopus Author ID, the consolidated output list, and the citation profile. If two profiles appear for the same person, the Scopus author feedback service lets the researcher merge them. For institutional rollout, a RIMS connects Scopus Author IDs to institutional researcher records in bulk, with manual review where the algorithm is uncertain.
How they relate to each other (and why both matter)
Scopus Author ID and ORCID are complementary, not redundant. Scopus Author ID is database-specific and computed; ORCID is researcher-owned and cross-publisher. Best practice is to link them: the researcher's ORCID profile includes their Scopus Author ID and other identifiers (such as Web of Science ResearcherID), and Scopus surfaces the ORCID iD on the author record. A RIMS reconciles both, so the institutional profile is correct regardless of which identifier the source system uses. Our guide on institutional ORCID adoption covers the rollout strategy.
Why this is non-negotiable for researcher metrics
As we discuss in our companion article on researcher-level metrics, every metric you compute at the individual level depends on correctly attributing outputs. Without persistent identifiers, attribution is a name-match — fragile for common names, defeated by spelling variation, and silently wrong at scale. With identifiers, attribution is exact, and every researcher-level metric becomes defensible.
What a RIMS does with these identifiers
A RIMS ingests publication metadata from multiple global sources (Scopus, OpenAlex, ORCID, Crossref, Scimago), reconciles author identity using ORCID and Scopus Author ID where available, and applies name-and-affiliation matching where they are not. The result is a consolidated researcher profile that is correct across systems — and stays correct as new outputs are published. The mechanics are covered in How a RIMS ingests data from five global sources.
Frequently asked questions
Can a researcher have more than one Scopus Author ID? Yes — accidentally. The Scopus author feedback service is used to merge duplicates.
Is ORCID required for publication? Many publishers and funders strongly encourage it; some require it for submission. The trend is towards universal adoption.
How does a RIMS get an ORCID iD? Either by the researcher linking their ORCID to the institutional record, or by reconciling external sources that already carry the ORCID.
Where to start
Begin with ORCID coverage. Discover RIMS automatically reconciles ORCID and Scopus Author ID across the five global sources it ingests, so the institutional researcher record is consistent, complete, and the foundation for every credible metric your institution reports.