Receiving credit for one's publications is central in scientific research and publishing. However, researchers may share the same name, or publish under different names over the course of their careers. In 2010, the Nature Publishing Group and Springer were among the founding members of ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) — an open, not-for-profit organization that provides individuals with a unique, persistent ORCID identifier, an ORCID iD that can be consistently associated with their name (in its various iterations), affiliations and their research work. Obtaining an ORCID iD is free and simple to do through the ORCID registration page (https://orcid.org/register) and 128,349 of our authors and referees across Nature Research have done so in the last seven years.

We have now taken an additional step in our efforts to ensure that researchers are recognized and receive credit for their work: Nature Cell Biology is one of the 14 Nature journals, and 46 Springer Nature journals that are participating in a trial mandating that the corresponding authors of papers accepted for publication as of 27 April 2017 provide their ORCID iDs. Authors are being prompted to provide their ORCID iD during the manuscript submission process, and are also able to do so at any point prior to the manuscript's acceptance for publication. The trial will last for six months, at the end of which we will evaluate the feedback we receive. We welcome your comments on this initiative at ncb@nature.com.