Explainer · Plain-language
What is RAiD?
RAiD (the Research Activity Identifier) is a persistent identifier for a research project or activity. It ties together the people, organisations, outputs, and instruments involved in a project over its whole lifetime, giving funded research a single durable reference.
The step most authors miss
Doing CRediT right? Don’t stop at the statement.
A CRediT statement credits you inside one paper. The recognition CRediT was built for happens when those roles are tied to you, persistently. Sign in with your ORCID — free — and claim your CRediT contributions on casrai.org, the home of the standard. They become a verified, portable part of your identity, not a line that disappears into one PDF.
Free: claim your contributions, then export a journal-ready CRediT statement, schema.org structured data, JATS XML, CSV or BibTeX — and preview your public profile. A membership publishes that profile publicly and verifies the journals you serve.
The project-level PID
ORCID identifies people, ROR identifies organisations, and DOI identifies outputs — but until RAiD there was no standard identifier for the project or activity that ties them together. RAiD fills that gap, giving each research activity a single durable handle that persists as the project evolves.
What a RAiD records
A RAiD record links the project to its contributors (by ORCID), participating organisations (by ROR), outputs (by DOI), funding, and related activities. It captures these relationships over time, so the record reflects the project's full history rather than a single snapshot.
Standard and stewardship
RAiD is an international standard, ISO 23527:2022. It originated in the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and is operated as a global service with a registration-authority model, making project identifiers available across institutions and countries.
Why RAiD matters
A project-level identifier lets funders, institutions, and repositories track everything connected to a funded activity automatically — who worked on it, where, what it produced — which supports reporting, impact assessment, and a more complete PID graph than people-plus-outputs alone can provide.
Key facts
At a glance
- Full name: Research Activity Identifier
- Identifies: research projects / activities
- Standard: ISO 23527:2022
- Origin: Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
- Connects: ORCID (people) + ROR (orgs) + DOI (outputs) + funding
- Scope: whole project lifetime, not a single snapshot
Common misconceptions
What people often get wrong
Often heard: RAiD identifies a research output, like a DOI.
Actually: No — RAiD identifies the project or activity; DOIs identify the outputs that project produces. RAiD links those DOIs together.
Often heard: RAiD is an Australia-only scheme.
Actually: No — RAiD originated at the ARDC but is an ISO standard (ISO 23527:2022) operated as a global service.
Going deeper
