Unique author identification

There has recently been an exciting initiative and that is where authors can be assigned a unique digital identifier (a 16-digit number), which makes it possible to distinguish between different authors even if they have exactly the same names or initials. In countries like e.g. China and Korea it constitutes a specific problem because many researchers will have the same surnames. It is certainly also a problem in other parts of the world, where there may be name matches and therefore it is a great idea to register at www.orcid.org and thereby get your unique author number. It is free of charge and will take you about 5 minutes.