The scientific signature: author's name

General recommendations

• Choose one version of your name and use it consistently.
• Use an author identifier that will remain linked to all variants of your name. We strongly recommend that authors create an ORCID ID.
• Include your institutional affiliation(s). If you have multiple affiliations, all of them should be included.
• Check your name in bibliographic databases and standardise all variants of your name, where possible.
• When registering for your author identifier, make sure to include all variants of your name.
• Where possible, add your ORCID identifier next to your name when your paper is published.

Why is it important?

• Using an author profile helps to avoid ambiguity arising from personal names based on cultural conventions. For example, it is common for Anglo-Saxon bibliographic databases to identify authors by only their last surname, with the rest of their name abbreviated (given name and first surname).
• Using a unique and consistent author name ensures that publications are correctly attributed to the appropriate author.
• Accurate attribution of research output relies on the correct association of academic publications, authors, and institutional affiliations. Multiple ways of designating a person or institution often lead to errors in tracking research output by universities.
• A precise institutional affiliation enhances the visibility of research centres and institutions, and ensures the reliability of research output indicators.