American Physical Society Becomes Largest Society Publisher to Adopt Research Organization Registry Identifiers

Institutional metadata in the Physical Review journals are now easier to find, track, and reference — a move that strengthens open science and research transparency

The American Physical Society has adopted the Research Organization Registry identification system, assigning persistent identifiers to authors' affiliations for every paper published in the Physical Review journals. The action comes as a response to challenges faced by the scientific community regarding metadata tracking.

Researchers, institutions, and libraries alike rely on high quality, accurate metadata to monitor publication output and impact. However, institutional metadata has lacked standardization across the publishing landscape. By assigning openly available ROR persistent identifiers, APS provides a solution to this problem and more. These identifiers will help authors and institutions keep track of the scope of their work.

APS also sends ROR identifiers to Crossref, an online record for scholarly metadata. The initiative makes relevant metadata discoverable across all search tools, with implications for funding and for participating in open access models.

APS is one of the first publishers to incorporate ROR identifiers in published metadata, demonstrating the society’s commitment to advancing open science