ROR's current data structure (aka its "metadata schema" or "JSON schema") is based on Digital Science's GRID, which provided the original seed data for the registry. GRID retired its public releases as of 16 Sep 2021, and ROR began managing its data independently from GRID in March 2022.

The current ROR metadata schema inherited from GRID in 2019 is now unofficially known as version 1.0. After two rounds of community feedback in 2022/2023, we are planning metadata metadata schema version 2.0 for release in late 2023. Read more about ROR's plans for metadata schema versioning.

To suggest a change to the ROR data structure, please file a Schema Change Request on the ROR Roadmap -- but before you do, please see whether your desired change is already planned in ROR metadata schema 2.0.

Fields

Below are listed the top-level fields (or "elements") in the ROR metadata schema along with their names, definitions, types, whether the field is required, and whether a value in the field is required. Queries to the ROR API will return all fields regardless of whether they have a value. JSON will include null values and empty arrays and objects if there is no value available for the given organization.

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New status & relationship type values

Beginning 1 Dec 2022, ROR supports new values inactive and withdrawn in status and Predecessor and Successor in relationships.type. Previously, all records had a status of active and relationships types were limited to Parent, Child, and Related. See updated field descriptions for status and relationships below and 2022-12-01 changelog post for more details.

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All available fields and sub-fields

See also the complete alphabetical list of All ROR fields and sub-fields in the current ROR metadata schema.

Definitions and policies

See also ROR Metadata Policies on GitHub.

* indicates a value is required

name*

The official name of the organization used for affiliation purposes (this may be different than the organization's legal name).

Only one name can be included in the primary name field. ROR metadata includes additional fields (alias, labels, acronym) for other versions of an organization’s name so that these versions of the name can also be represented in the metadata record and so that the organization can be discoverable in the registry no matter which version of a name is input by a user in searches and API queries.

The primary name field defaults to English when an English version of an organization’s name is available, but primary names may also be in non-English languages.

ROR metadata can support multiple languages and character sets. However, the primary name field uses Latin (Roman) characters only.

The primary data source for the organization name and formatting thereof is the organization's website.

alias, labels

alias is used for one or more alternate forms of the organization name that may be used for affiliation purposes but are not considered the primary name according to official organization policy and/or for the purposes of ROR metadata handling. This field may include both current and historical name variants. ROR does not currently identify which aliases are current versus historical (this is something to address in future iterations of the ROR schema).

labels displays versions of the organization name in one or more languages other than that used in the primary name field, with a corresponding language tag based on the two-letter ISO-639 code.

acronyms

One or more official acronyms or initialisms for the organization, typically consisting of the first letters of the words in the organization name (e.g., UCLA for “University of California, Los Angeles”).

status*

Indication of whether the organization is active or not, based on a controlled list of status values. Allowed status values:

active: An organization that is actively producing research outputs.

inactive: An organization that has ceased operation or producing research outputs.

withdrawn: A record that was created in error or determined by the ROR curation team to no longer be in scope for the registry.

A record with a status of inactive or withdrawn may have one or more successor organizations listed in its relationships. Successor relationships indicate that another organization continues the work of an organization that has become inactive or has been withdrawn. See relationships below for more information.

Note: Prior to 1 Dec 2022, all records had a status of active. Read more about this change in the Dec 1 release notes

links

The primary website of the organization. Only one URL should be associated with the record.

In the case of websites with translated versions that use a language suffix like “/en”, the generic URL (without the language suffix) is used as long as the website resolves without it. Otherwise, the English version will be used.

types*

The type of organization based on a controlled list of categories. An organization always has a type. ROR metadata can support multiple types for a given organization, but in most cases, there will just be one type associated with the organization.

Based on the available information about the organization, curators will use their judgement in determining the appropriate category to assign.

Allowed types:

Education: A university or similar institution involved in providing education and educating/employing researchers

Healthcare: A medical care facility such as hospital or medical clinic. Excludes medical schools, which should be categorized as “Education”.

Company: A private for-profit corporate entity involved in conducting or sponsoring research.

Archive: An organization involved in stewarding research and cultural heritage materials. Includes libraries, museums, and zoos.

Nonprofit: A non-profit and non-governmental organization involved in conducting or funding research.

Government: An organization that is part of or operated by a national or regional government and that conducts or supports research.

Facility: A specialized facility where research takes place, such as a laboratory or telescope or dedicated research area.

Other: Use this category for any organization that does not fit the categories above.

addresses

Location details for the organization. Location data comes from GeoNames.

A city or specified location is required to populate corresponding data from GeoNames, such as latitude/longitude coordinates, state/province/region, and country.

external_ids

Other identifiers for the organization (if available).

ROR maps its IDs to the following other identifiers: GRID, Wikidata, ISNI, and Crossref Funder Registry (formerly “Fundref”).

There are additional IDs in the existing ROR metadata that are primarily legacy identifiers. These will not be actively curated in new records for the time being: OrgRef, UCAS, CNRS, HESA, UKPRN.

relationships

One or more organizations that the organization is related to.

Five types of relations are supported: Parent, Child, Related, Predecessor and Successor. An organization can have multiple relationships but each relationship must be classified as Parent, Child, Related, Predecessor or Successor.

Inverse relationships

Parent, Child and Related types must have corresponding relationships in the related record, except in the case of records with status inactive or withdrawn. For example, if Organization A's record contains a relationship to Organization B with type Parent (and both records have status active), Organization B's record must contain a corresponding relationship to Organization A with type Child.

Predecessor and Successor types may optionally contain corresponding relationships in the related records, but they are not required. For example, if Organization A becomes inactive and contains a relationship to Organization B with type Successor, Organization B may or may not contain a corresponding relationship to Organization A with type Predecessor.

Relationships to inactive records

Records with status active cannot contain relationships to records with status inactive or withdrawn, except for relationships with type Predecessor.

Records with status inactive or withdrawn may have relationships to records with status active for the sake of preserving the record data at the time the record status was changed to inactive or withdrawn. These are not considering current relationships and do not require corresponding relationships in related records.

Successor organizations

Records with a status of inactive or withdrawn may have one or more successor organizations listed in their relationships. Successor relationships indicate that another organization continues the work of an organization that has become inactive or has been withdrawn from the registry. If an organization simply changes its name, it will not receive a Successor; the existing ROR record for the organization will simply be modified with the new name in the name field and the previous name in the aliases field.

Depending on your use case, you may wish to update references to inactive ROR records in your system(s) to the corresponding Successor organization(s).

established

The year the organization was established, written as four digits (YYYY).

Example record

See the JSON structure in an example organization record.

{
   "id":"https://ror.org/013cjyk83",
   "name":"PSL Research University",
   "email_address":null,
   "ip_addresses":[
      
   ],
   "established":2010,
   "types":[
      "Education"
   ],
   "relationships":[
      {
         "label":"ESPCI Paris",
         "type":"Child",
         "id":"https://ror.org/03zx86w41"
      },
      {
         "label":"Subcellular Structure and Cellular Dynamics",
         "type":"Child",
         "id":"https://ror.org/04w11tv37"
      },
      {
         "label":"École Pratique des Hautes Études",
         "type":"Child",
         "id":"https://ror.org/046b3cj80"
      }
   ],
   "addresses":[
      {
         "lat":48.854692,
         "lng":2.33781,
         "state":null,
         "state_code":null,
         "city":"Paris",
         "geonames_city":{
            "id":2988507,
            "city":"Paris",
            "geonames_admin1":{
               "name":"Île-de-France",
               "id":3012874,
               "ascii_name":"Ile-de-France",
               "code":"FR.11"
            },
            "geonames_admin2":{
               "name":"Paris",
               "id":2968815,
               "ascii_name":"Paris",
               "code":"FR.11.75"
            },
            "license":{
               "attribution":"Data from geonames.org under a CC-BY 3.0 license",
               "license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"
            },
            "nuts_level1":{
               "name":"ÎLE DE FRANCE",
               "code":"FR1"
            },
            "nuts_level2":{
               "name":"Île de France",
               "code":"FR10"
            },
            "nuts_level3":{
               "name":"Paris",
               "code":"FR101"
            }
         },
         "postcode":null,
         "primary":false,
         "line":null,
         "country_geonames_id":3017382
      }
   ],
   "links":[
      "https://www.psl.eu/en/university"
   ],
   "aliases":[
      "Université PSL"
   ],
   "acronyms":[
      "PSL"
   ],
   "status":"active",
   "wikipedia_url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSL_Research_University",
   "labels":[
      {
         "label":"Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres",
         "iso639":"fr"
      }
   ],
   "country":{
      "country_name":"France",
      "country_code":"FR"
   },
   "external_ids":{
      "ISNI":{
         "preferred":null,
         "all":[
            "0000 0004 1784 3645"
         ]
      },
      "OrgRef":{
         "preferred":null,
         "all":[
            "31274670"
         ]
      },
      "Wikidata":{
         "preferred":null,
         "all":[
            "Q1163431"
         ]
      },
      "GRID":{
         "preferred":"grid.440907.e",
         "all":"grid.440907.e"
      }
   }
}