Resource Identification Initiative

The instructions below are for journals that support the Resource Identification Initiative, which aims to promote research resource identification, discovery, and reuse.

This initiative, led by the Neuroscience Information Framework and the Oregon Health & Science University Library, provides unique identifiers for antibodies, model organisms, cell lines, and tools including software and databases. These IDs, called Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs), are machine-readable and can be used to search for all papers where a particular resource was used and to increase access to critical data to help researchers identify suitable reagents and tools.

If there is a resource that is not found within the Research Resource Identification Portal, you are asked to register the resource with the appropriate resource authority. Information on how to do this is provided in the “Resource Citation Guidelines” section of the RRI Portal.

If any difficulties in obtaining identifiers arise, please contact rii-help@scicrunch.org for assistance.

When to use RRIDS

  • You will be asked to use RRIDs to cite the resources used in your research where applicable, similar to a regular citation or Genbank Accession number.
  • For antibodies, you should include in the citation the vendor, catalog number, and RRID both in the text and upon first mention in the Methods section
  • For software tools and databases, please provide the name of the resource followed by the resource website, if available, and the RRID.
  • For model organisms, the RRID alone is sufficient.
  • Additionally, you must include the RRIDs in the list of keywords associated with the manuscript.

To obtain Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs):

  1. Use the Research Resource Identification Portal, created by the Resource Identification Initiative Working Group.
  2. Search for the research resource (please see the section titled “Search Features and Tips” for more information).
  3. Click on the “Cite This” button to obtain the citation and insert the citation into the manuscript text.

Example citations:

  • Antibodies: "Wnt3 was localized using a rabbit polyclonal antibody C64F2 against Wnt3 (Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 2721S, RRID: AB_2215411)"
  • Tools, Software, and Databases: "Image analysis was conducted with CellProfiler Image Analysis Software, V2.0 (http://www.cellprofiler.org, RRID:nif-0000-00280)"Model Organisms: "Experiments were conducted in c. elegans strain SP304 (RRID:CGC_SP304)"
  • Cell lines: "Experiments were conducted in PC12 CLS cells (CLS Cat# 500311/p701_PC-12, RRID:CVCL_0481)"