Your research organization carries a ROR identifier recognized by every academic database
Does your university or research institute include its ROR ID for AI and citation systems?
What this signal tests
We check whether your Organization JSON-LD includes a ROR (Research Organization Registry) identifier, the standard open ID for research and academic institutions. ROR URLs look like https://ror.org/02mhbdp94 and are used by Crossref, DataCite, ORCID, and most scholarly publishers to identify universities, labs, and research nonprofits unambiguously.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
Academic and research institutions get cited constantly, but their names are messy: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, M.I.T., and 'the Institute' all refer to the same place. ROR was created precisely to fix this with a single durable identifier per institution. AI systems analyzing academic output rely on ROR to attribute publications correctly. If a user asks Perplexity "what is the University of Edinburgh's recent work on protein folding?", and your university homepage exposes its ROR in sameAs, the assistant can match your institution to every Crossref-indexed paper carrying that ROR and surface a complete answer. Without it, the assistant may miss papers attributed only to 'Edinburgh' or confuse you with Edinburgh Napier University.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| Valid resolvable ROR ID for research/academic orgs. |
How we test it
We parse the Organization JSON-LD on your homepage and inspect both the sameAs array and the identifier property. We pattern-match against the ROR URL format (https://ror.org/ followed by nine characters: a zero, six alphanumeric characters, and two digits) and validate the ISO 7064 check digit. We then resolve the URL to confirm the ROR record exists and is active. If your organization is academic or research-focused and no valid ROR appears, the signal fails.
Show technical detection method
sameAs matches ^https://ror\.org/0[0-9a-hjkmnp-tv-z]{6}\d{2}$; validate ISO 7064 checksum.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Look up your institution at ror.org/search; ROR has indexed over 100,000 research organizations, so yours is likely already there.
- Copy your institution's ROR URL (the full https://ror.org/... form) from the search result.
- If your institution is not in ROR, submit it via the ROR community curation process (ror.org/registering); approval typically takes a few weeks.
- Add the ROR URL to the sameAs array of your Organization JSON-LD, alongside Wikidata and Wikipedia links if you have them.
- Alternatively, use the identifier property with propertyID 'ROR' and the ROR URL as value, which is more explicit.
- Validate with Schema.org Validator and confirm the ROR URL resolves.
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | medium |
| Category | Entity |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
Does this apply to commercial companies?
ROR's scope is research-performing organizations: universities, government labs, hospitals with research programs, independent research institutes, and corporate R&D divisions that publish scientific work. Pure commercial companies without a research arm do not need a ROR.
How is ROR different from a DUNS or LEI?
DUNS is a commercial credit identifier, LEI is a financial-regulation identifier, and ROR is specifically for research organizations. The three serve different audiences and a large institution may carry all three. ROR is the only one that scholarly AI workflows treat as canonical.
Is ROR free?
Yes, completely. ROR is a community-curated registry funded by Crossref, DataCite, and California Digital Library. Getting an entry is free; using your ROR ID is free.
What if my institution has multiple campuses?
ROR typically assigns one ID per legally-distinct institution, with related campuses listed as relationships. Use the main institution's ROR on your top-level domain; if a campus has its own legal status (separate accreditation or registration), it may have its own ROR worth listing on its specific site.
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