Beginning from January 2016 the Publishers of a number of journals will be requiring authors to submit their ORCID ID's during the article submission process.
These Publishers include The Royal Society, PLoS, Science, eLife and The Company of Biologists.
More Publishers are expected to join those listed above that require submission of ORCID ID's as 2016 continues.
For more information see the following links
https://orcid.org/blog/2016/01/07/publishers-start-requiring-orcid-ids
and
https://orcid.org/content/requiring-orcid-publication-workflows-open-letter
Click here to register for your ORCID ID number
From the ORCID mission statement
"ORCID aims to solve the name ambiguity problem in research and scholarly communications by creating a central registry of unique identifiers for individual researchers and an open and transparent linking mechanism between ORCID and other current researcher ID schemes. These identifiers, and the relationships among them, can be linked to the researcher's output to enhance the scientific discovery process and to improve the efficiency of research funding and collaboration within the research community."
NOTICE: ORCID iDs will now be REQUIRED (beginning FY2020) for individuals supported by research training, fellowship, research education, and career development awards from NIH, AHRQ, and CDC. See the notice here.
And in more detail
"ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. ORCID is unique in its ability to reach across disciplines, research sectors and national boundaries. It is a hub that connects researchers and research through the embedding of ORCID identifiers in key workflows, such as research profile maintenance, manuscript submissions, grant applications, and patent applications.
ORCID provides two core functions: (1) a registry to obtain a unique identifier and manage a record of activities, and (2) APIs that support system-to-system communication and authentication. ORCID makes its code available under an open source license, and will post an annual public data file under a CC0 waiver for free download.
The ORCID Registry is available free of charge to individuals, who may obtain an ORCID identifier, manage their record of activities, and search for others in the Registry. Organizations may become members to link their records to ORCID identifiers, to update ORCID records, to receive updates from ORCID, and to register their employees and students for ORCID identifiers.
ORCID records hold non-sensitive information such as name, email, organization and research activities. ORCID understands the fundamental need for individuals to control how their data are shared, and provides tools to manage data privacy. We take steps to protect your information, consistent with the principles set forth in our Privacy Policy, which are intended to comply with the Safe Harbor Principles issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce."
For anyone conducting research and publishing research an ORCID ID is a valuable tool because it allows you to distinguish yourself from other with similar names.
Your unique ORCID ID number can be easily attached to all of your research output such as papers, protocols, datasets, articles, presentations and patents and allows others to quickly and accurately find your work
