Many publishers also maintain researcher identifiers for their own publications, such as ResearcherID (Web of Science) and Scopus Author ID (Elsevier)
Advantages of Researcher Identifiers
Simply put, researcher identifiers are like social security numbers for researchers; they help distinguish one researcher from another, particularly those who have common names such as Jennifer Davis or Jack Yang.
Researcher identifiers offer many benefits:
Less ambiguity
Accurate measure of scholarly output
Persistent (you never lose them even if you move institutions)
Saves time by linking to other systems (such as grant applications)
