Scopus Author ID

A Scopus Author ID is the numeric identifier Elsevier’s Scopus database automatically assigns to disambiguate and group a researcher’s indexed publications. Unlike an ORCID iD, a Scopus Author ID is not something a researcher registers or requests — it is generated algorithmically once Elsevier’s matching process has enough article metadata (name variants, affiliation history, subject classification, co-author network, citation patterns) to group two or more Scopus-indexed documents under what the algorithm judges to be the same person. It functions purely as an internal disambiguation key inside Scopus, not as an interoperable, cross-publisher persistent identifier in the ORCID or ROR sense.

How a Scopus Author ID gets assigned

Scopus’s algorithm builds an author profile from the metadata attached to indexed articles rather than from any information a researcher submits directly. Because the match runs on article-level signals — which can vary across a career (a name spelled differently, a change of institution, a shift in subject area, a change in habitual co-authors) — Elsevier’s own documentation acknowledges the algorithm “can rarely match all documents to a single profile with 100% accuracy.” In practice this means the same researcher can end up with two or more separate Scopus Author ID profiles, each holding a different subset of their publication record, rather than one complete profile.

Duplicate profiles: merging and correcting a Scopus Author ID

Researchers cannot edit a Scopus Author ID’s underlying algorithmic match directly, but Scopus provides two related self-service routes to fix it:

• Requesting a merge. Searching one’s own name in Scopus and finding multiple author profiles that all belong to the same person, a researcher can select the relevant profiles and submit a “Request to merge authors.” Elsevier’s review team typically completes merge requests within roughly two to four weeks, after which the previously split output consolidates under a single ID.
• The Scopus Author Feedback Wizard. This tool lets a researcher review their own profile, set a preferred name display, merge duplicate profiles, correct affiliation information, and add or remove specific documents that were mismatched to (or missing from) their profile. Submitted changes go to Elsevier for review and are approved or declined rather than applied automatically.

Because correction runs through Elsevier’s review rather than direct researcher edit, a Scopus Author ID profile can lag behind a researcher’s actual, current publication record for a period after a name or affiliation change — something a research office should account for when using Scopus-derived output counts for time-sensitive reporting.

Scopus Author ID vs. ORCID iD

The two are frequently confused because both show up as “your author ID” in grant applications, CVs, and CRIS profile fields, but they differ in ownership and portability:

• An ORCID iD is registered directly by the researcher, is free and permanent, and is designed to be cited across publishers, funders, and institutions — it does not depend on any single database’s indexing decisions.
• A Scopus Author ID is generated by Elsevier’s algorithm purely from what is indexed in Scopus, resolves only within Elsevier’s own ecosystem, and depends entirely on which of a researcher’s works Scopus has chosen to index (see how Scopus decides what to index in the main Scopus entry).

Scopus supports linking a Scopus Author ID to a researcher’s ORCID record, and many campus systems display both side by side, but linking does not make them equivalent — a research office should treat the Scopus Author ID as a Scopus-internal disambiguation layer that complements, rather than substitutes for, a researcher’s ORCID iD.

Role in research administration

Scopus Author IDs (and the related Scopus Affiliation ID for institutions) are commonly ingested by campus current research information systems such as Elements (Symplectic) and Pure to auto-populate publication lists and compute institution-level bibliometric indicators such as Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI). Because a stale or split Scopus Author ID directly understates a researcher’s indexed output in these reports, research offices supporting tenure and promotion files, annual research reporting, or grant biosketches often advise researchers to check their Scopus Author ID for duplicates and completeness alongside — not instead of — keeping their ORCID record current. For a full comparison of Scopus against Web of Science and OpenAlex as underlying databases, see Scopus vs Web of Science vs OpenAlex; for registering and maintaining the researcher-owned identifier it is most often paired with, see How to Register, Find, and Search for ORCID iDs.

Worked examples

• A researcher with a consistent name and affiliation across three Scopus-indexed articles has a single, complete Scopus Author ID automatically generated, shown on their Scopus Author Details page with their document count and Scopus-derived h-index.
• A researcher who changed affiliation mid-career finds their output split across two Scopus Author ID profiles when searching their own name, and resolves it by selecting both and submitting a merge request, which Elsevier typically completes within a few weeks.

Counter-example

An ORCID iD is not a Scopus Author ID: ORCID is researcher-registered, free, portable across publishers and funders, and controlled directly by the researcher; a Scopus Author ID is algorithmically generated by Elsevier from Scopus-indexed metadata alone and can only be corrected through Scopus’s own review process, not edited by the researcher directly.