From: "Meadows, Alice" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 08:51:40 -0400

We are delighted to announce that Italy will be implementing ORCID on
a national scale, and has signed a three-year consortium membership
agreement with ORCID.  Under the auspices of ANVUR and CRUI (the
Conference of Italian University Rectors), 70 universities and four
research centers will initially participate in the consortium. This
large-scale adoption will underpin the IRIDE (Italian Researcher
IDentifier for Evaluation) Project, using a platform developed by
Cineca. The project’s goal is to ensure that at least 80% of Italian
researchers have an ORCID iD, with links to their research output back
to 2006, by the end of 2016.

As a result of this agreement, Italian researchers and their
institutions will benefit from access to and integration with the
ORCID registry, including setting up and maintaining disambiguated
records for all researchers and linking these to their publications
and other research outputs - leading in turn to a simpler, more
reliable evaluation process.

ANVUR is Italy’s National Agency for the Evaluation of the University
and Research Institutes.  The agency manages the VQR, a four-year
summative national research assessment exercise, in which all Italian
universities participate.  ANVUR sees the use of ORCID in the VQR as a
means to reduce the reporting workload for researchers and
administrators alike, while at the same time improving data quality.
To this end, ANVUR plans to require researchers participating in the
2011-2014 VQR to register for an ORCID iD, and connect their ORCID
record and relevant bibliometric databases with all publications
submitted for evaluation.  Professor Stefano Fantoni, President of
ANVUR stated that: “ANVUR is pleased for this agreement, as it will
facilitate and make more reliable the Agency’s evaluation tasks. In
particular, the incoming national assessment of research (VQR
2011-2014) will constitute an occasion not to be missed to provide all
Italian professors and researchers with the ORCID identifier and to
link to it the publications submitted for evaluation”.

Cineca, a not-for-profit consortium representing 70 Italian
universities, four Italian research institutions, and the Italian
Ministry of Education, is responsible for the ORCID implementation.
Cineca’s role includes creating a central ORCID hub that will
facilitate the adoption of the identifier by Italian researchers,
enabling immediate use of the API from the member’s institution,
collecting authorizations required to use the Identifier in multiple
services, and providing reporting functionalities. The next step will
be to use this approach to provide innovative services such as
synchronization and notification. Cineca’s intention is to release the
Hub as open-source software, to help other countries to profit from
this experience. The Hub will be integrated with IRIS, Cineca’s RIMS
solution based on DSpace-CRIS. Cineca’s President, Professor Emilio
Ferrari welcomed the agreement: “At Cineca we are pleased and proud to
continue to support the national academic system with our skills and
infrastructures: the implementation of ORCID is part of the activities
that characterize the role of service of the consortium to the
research community”.

ORCID will be supporting the rollout in Italy with technical help desk
advice, an Italian user interface and communications documentation,
and a central web interface to enable participating universities to
coordinate effort.  Executive Director, Laure Haak, noted that: “This
large-scale ORCID implementation shows how persistent identifiers can
be used to improve the flow of research information. Connecting
national and international research infrastructures is a great way to
deliver a better experience for researchers and administrators who
have to collect and share information about research. Our team is
looking forward to working with CINECA, in concert with other ORCID
member organizations, to ensure a smooth integration.”

ABOUT ANVUR:

ANVUR is the independent Italian Agency for the Evaluation of
Universities and Research Institutes that started its operation in May
2011. It is charge of evaluating the research and teaching activities
of all Italian universities, public and private, and the research
activities of the research centers operating under the supervision of
the Italian Ministry of Education and Research. Among its tasks, ANVUR
 approves the initial accreditation all new universities courses,
including PhD  programs, and it is in charge of the periodic national
assessment of the quality of research performed in universities and
research centers. It has concluded the first massive assessment (VQR
2004-2010) in 2013, and is now working toward the next one concerning
the years 2011-2014.

ABOUT CINECA:

Cineca (http://www.cineca.it) is a not-for-profit consortium, made up
of 70 Italian universities, four Italian Research Institutions, and
the Italian Ministry of Education. Today it is the largest Italian
Computing Centre and one of the most important worldwide. With more
than 800 employees, it operates in the technological transfer sector
through high performance scientific computing, the management and
development of networks and web based services, and the development of
complex information systems for treating large amounts of data. It
develops advanced Information Technology applications and services,
acting like a trait-d'union between the academic world, the sphere of
pure research, and the world of industry and Public Administration.
For more information contact Andrea Bollini, Cineca-ORCID Project
Leader, at [log in to unmask]

ABOUT CRUI:

The CRUI is the association of the state and private universities.
Established in 1963 as a private association of Rectors, the
Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) has over time acquired
an acknowledged institutional and representative role, as well as a
practical capacity to influence the development of the university
system through its intense activity of study and experimentation.
Since 2001, the Conference of Italian University Rectors has been
flanked in its managerial and executive functions by the CRUI
Foundation, which is entrusted with developing projects and services
in conformity with the strategies of the Conference of Italian
University Rectors.

ABOUT ORCID:

ORCID (http://orcid.org) is a community-driven non-profit organization
that aims to solve the name ambiguity problem in research and
scholarly communications. ORCID maintains a central registry of unique
identifiers for individual researchers and provides open and
transparent processes for connecting ORCID iDs with persistent
identifiers for people, organizations, and research activities and
outputs.  Connecting these identifiers can improve the research and
scholarly discovery process, reduce reporting burdens, increase the
efficiency of research funding, and support sharing and collaboration
within the research community.  For more information contact Laurel
Haak, ORCID Executive Director, at [log in to unmask]

Alice Meadows
Director of Communications, ORCID
[log in to unmask]
orcid.org/0000-0003-2161-3781