Introduction


This report is being generated in response to an OER leadership request for a report of ORCID use by NIH awardees. ORCID, which stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID, is a free, unique, persistent identifier (PID) for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. ORCID IDs have been established worldwide to connect individuals to their professional information (such as publications, awards, affiliations, etc.) for references and citations. More information about ORCID can be found here.

NIH collects the ORCID IDs of researchers through eRA Commons, however, the level of use by awardees is unknown. Currently, NIH mandates using an ORCID ID for applicants on Fellowship and Research Career grants and for trainees on Training grants. We produced metrics to determine the use of this resource over time and the demographics of users.


Methods


Inclusion/Exclusion criteria


  • This report includes counts for PIs/MPIs from extramural awards during FY2016 to FY2023.
  • For both Grant and PI/MPI counts, COVID and ARRA awards were not included.

Data gathering


  • Data was gathered from NIH’s IRDB system, which includes awards data, demographics, and ORCID IDs entered by PIs/MPIs in their person profiles.


Data processing


  • PI/MPI age was obtained by using awardees’ birth date and calculating their age at the time of submission of the grant application.
  • Awards were considered as having a PI/MPIs with an ORCID ID if this ID was registered in eRA before or on the year of the award being granted.

Results



PI/MPIs from Research Grants Registered in ORCID



We estimated counts for FY2016-2023 Principal investigator/Multiple Principal Investigator (PI/MPI) awardees from Research Grants based on their ORCID registration status (i.e. ORCID ID availability). Over the assessed period we have seen a consistent increase in PI/MPIs registration in ORCID going from 890 awardees (2.4%) in FY2016 to 24385 awardees (51.5%) in FY2023.

Awards with PI/MPIs registered in ORCID, by Mechanism



We similarly estimated the percentage of awardees with a ORCID ID by research mechanism. Overall we see an increase in the registration percentage across all research mechanisms. This increase is more pronunciated in certain mechanisms such as Fellowships and Research Career awards than in others like SBIR/STTR awards.



ESI Status Distribution



Finally, we evaluated the percentage of ORCID registration by ESI award status. This data shows that researchers on ESI awards tend to be more frequently registered in ORCID. Note, that for this analysis we used the ESI application status as opposed to ESI person status. An application receives an ESI status when all PIs on the applications are ESIs.

Demographics of PIs/MPIs from Research Grants, by ORCID registration status



Age Distribution



We evaluated the distribution of all research grant PI/MPI awardees by ORCID registration status. This data shows that PIs/MPIs with an ORCID registration are slightly younger.





Gender Distribution



We evaluated the percentage of ORCID registration status by gender in research grants . This data shows that female researchers are more frequently registered in ORCID than males.



Ethnicity Distribution



We evaluated the percentage of ORCID registration status by ethnicity in research grants. This data shows that hispanic researchers are more frequently registered in ORCID than non hispanics.



Race Distribution



We also evaluated the percentage of ORCID registration status by race in research grants. This data shows that minority researchers tend to be more frequently registered in ORCID than whites.