ROR IDs are persistent identifiers for research organizations. Understand why these identifiers are important and how to find your institution’s ROR.
What Is a ROR ID?
ROR, the Research Organization Registry, is operated as a collaborative initiative by California Digital Library, Crossref, and DataCite. ROR (pronounced “roar”) issues the ROR ID, a persistent identifier for research organizations. ROR IDs are openly available via their website and through a free API.
Why Are ROR IDs Important?
Using a persistent identifier for organizations is important for disambiguation and identification of organizations with similar names. Moreover, organizations’ structures and relationships to one another change over time as they merge, change names, or close down. If you have been in an organization that has changed its name, you may be aware of how difficult it can be to find research outputs that were published under the old name. Using a persistent identifier allows for tracking of an organization over time.
ROR is not the only organizational identifier currently in use. Others include GRID (deprecated in preference to ROR), Ringgold (commonly used by publishers), and Wikidata ID. However, ROR is the most widely used, and it is the only organizational identifier that is free and licensed under a CC0 license, making it an open platform.
How Can I Find My Organization’s ID?
On the ROR homepage, you will see a search bar where you can search for organizations. For instance, if you search for Harvard, you will pull up the university’s record:
The URL on top is the ROR ID – ROR IDs are generally displayed as an entire URL. On the right-hand side, you can see a cross reference to other organizational identifiers. On the bottom, you will see relationships. ROR can list parent/child organizations (e.g., a center that is part of a university), related organizations, or predecessor/successor organizations.
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Persistent Identifiers (PIDs): An Overview
Sources
Fagan-Fry, Jennifer. “ORCID for Researchers: Organizational Identifiers (RORs).” NOAA Central Library, December 4, 2023. https://libguides.library.noaa.gov/c.php?g=1234368&p=9415643.
Research Organization Registry (ROR). “FAQs.” Accessed December 6, 2023. https://ror.org/about/faqs/.
Research Organization Registry (ROR). “ROR Documentation.” Accessed December 6, 2023. https://ror.readme.io/.