To migrate a legacy Web of Science ResearcherID to ORCID, connect your ORCID iD from the “ORCID Syncing” tab in your Web of Science Researcher Profile settings, authorise the connection, and choose which publications and peer reviews sync between the two records. Once connected, you can also sign in to Web of Science directly with your ORCID credentials instead of a separate password. A web of science login orcid connection replaces manual record-keeping with an automatic, two-way publication sync.
A Web of Science ResearcherID is a unique alphanumeric code (for example, A-1234-2015) that Clarivate assigns to an author profile so that publications can be traced back to a single researcher across Web of Science and InCites. ORCID iD, by contrast, is a free, persistent identifier issued by the non-profit ORCID organisation and used across publishers, funders, and institutional systems. The two identifiers now interoperate, but ResearcherID alone no longer functions as a standalone login system — it has been folded into the wider Web of Science Researcher Profile since Clarivate retired Publons in August 2022.
Contents
- What is a Web of Science ResearcherID, and how does it relate to ORCID?
- How to link your ResearcherID to your ORCID iD
- How to log in to Web of Science using ORCID
- Web of Science, Scopus, and ORCID: comparing the identifier systems
- Answer-first Q&A: common ORCID and Web of Science login questions
- What this means for institutions, and what comes next
What is a Web of Science ResearcherID, and how does it relate to ORCID?
A Web of Science ResearcherID is a legacy Clarivate-assigned code that links an author’s indexed publications to a single profile, findable on the researcher’s own profile page. It predates ORCID by several years, having originated as Thomson Reuters’ ResearcherID system before Clarivate acquired the Web of Science business.
ORCID is different in scope and governance. It is a vendor-neutral, non-profit registry launched in 2012, and an ORCID iD is portable across publishers, funders, institutional CRIS systems, and indexing databases — not tied to a single vendor’s platform. Clarivate’s own support documentation confirms that Web of Science now treats ORCID as one of several “connected accounts,” alongside Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and WeChat, for both identity verification and sign-in.
Since Clarivate retired Publons as a standalone platform in August 2022, ResearcherID functionality — including ORCID-based sign-in — was migrated directly into Web of Science Researcher Profiles. Anyone still relying on an old, unlinked ResearcherID should treat that migration as the reason to act now: unconnected legacy profiles are more likely to fragment a researcher’s publication record across systems.
How to link your ResearcherID to your ORCID iD
Linking is a one-time authorisation that then runs automatically. The process requires an active account on both platforms and takes a few minutes to complete.
- Sign in to your Web of Science Researcher Profile at webofscience.com.
- Select “Edit” on your profile and open the ORCID Syncing tab in your profile settings.
- Choose “Connect your ORCID iD” — you will be redirected to orcid.org to sign in.
- Authorise Web of Science to read and update your ORCID record when prompted.
- Set your sync preferences: export Web of Science publications to ORCID, export verified peer review records to ORCID, and/or import records added directly to ORCID back into Web of Science.
Once configured, updates typically propagate between the two records within about ten minutes of a change on either side, according to Clarivate’s own Web of Science documentation. This removes the need to manually re-enter publications in both places every time a new article is indexed.
Institutions running a research information system (research administration teams managing CRIS or repository feeds) should note that this sync is account-level, not institution-level — each author must connect their own ORCID iD individually; there is no bulk-migration tool for ResearcherID-to-ORCID linking at scale.
How to log in to Web of Science using ORCID
Once your accounts are connected, ORCID becomes a valid sign-in method for Web of Science, replacing the need to remember a separate Clarivate password.
- From the Web of Science sign-in page, select the ORCID sign-in option rather than entering an email and password.
- You will be redirected to ORCID’s own sign-in page to enter your ORCID email or 16-digit iD and password.
- After authenticating, ORCID returns you to your Web of Science Researcher Profile, now signed in.
If you originally registered through Publons using a connected account, Clarivate’s support documentation notes you may be prompted to confirm a verified email address the first time you use ORCID sign-in on the newer Web of Science platform. Researchers who end up with two profiles as a result — one from an old Publons/ResearcherID registration and one created fresh — should use Web of Science’s documented account-merging process rather than maintaining duplicates, since duplicate profiles split citation and peer-review history across two identifiers.
Web of Science, Scopus, and ORCID: comparing the identifier systems
Authors and research-administration teams frequently manage three overlapping identifier systems at once. Each serves a distinct purpose, and none is a substitute for the others.
| System | Issuer | Scope | ORCID integration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web of Science ResearcherID | Clarivate | Web of Science / InCites indexing only | Two-way sync via ORCID Syncing tab; ORCID usable as login |
| Scopus Author ID | Elsevier | Scopus indexing and Elsevier products only | Author profile can be linked to ORCID for publication sync |
| ORCID iD | ORCID (non-profit) | Cross-publisher, cross-funder, cross-institution | Native registry; other systems connect to it, not vice versa |
The practical implication is definitive: ORCID is the identifier that should persist across a researcher’s career, while ResearcherID and Scopus Author ID remain vendor-specific labels that are only useful once connected back to that single ORCID iD.
Answer-first Q&A: common ORCID and Web of Science login questions
How do I connect ORCID with Web of Science?
Sign in to your Web of Science Researcher Profile, open profile settings, select the ORCID Syncing tab, and choose “Connect your ORCID iD.” You will authorise the connection on ORCID’s site, then set which publications and peer reviews sync automatically between the two records.
How do I sign in to Web of Science with ORCID?
On the Web of Science sign-in screen, choose the ORCID option instead of entering an email and password. You are redirected to ORCID to authenticate, then returned to your Researcher Profile already signed in — provided the accounts were connected beforehand.
How do I find my Web of Science ResearcherID?
Your ResearcherID is displayed on your Web of Science Researcher Profile page. It is the code used to trace your indexed publications across Web of Science and InCites, and it remains visible even after you connect an ORCID iD to the same profile.
How do I sign in to my ORCID account?
On the ORCID sign-in page, enter either the email address on your account, your full ORCID iD URL, or the 16-digit number itself, followed by your password. This same credential set is what Web of Science, Scopus, and other connected platforms redirect to for ORCID-based sign-in.
What this means for institutions, and what comes next
For research administrators, the retirement of Publons as a standalone identity layer and its absorption into Web of Science Researcher Profiles is a reminder that vendor-specific identifiers are not stable long-term infrastructure. An ORCID iD, kept current and connected to every indexing platform an author uses, is the only identifier designed to outlast any single vendor’s product roadmap.
Institutions running authorship and contributorship policies should build ORCID connection into onboarding for new researchers rather than treating it as a retrospective clean-up task. A researcher who connects ORCID once, at the point of creating a Web of Science or Scopus profile, avoids the duplicate-profile and fragmented-citation problems that legacy ResearcherID-only accounts now generate.
Expect vendor consolidation around ORCID sign-in to continue: as more indexing and peer-review platforms retire bespoke login systems, ORCID’s role shifts from “one option among several” to the default authentication layer for scholarly identity. Authors who migrate their legacy ResearcherID now avoid doing so under pressure later.
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