Overview
InCites now provides a richer, more accurate view of how individual researchers contribute to your institution’s output. The release introduces a publication-level Affiliation filter, expanded researcher search by Web of Science Researcher ID (RID) and ORCID, clearer filter names, one-click profile links, and the deprecation of the legacy Unique ID grouping. Together, these enhancements make it far easier to attribute publications correctly, benchmark institutional performance, and support data-driven decisions.
Context and Rationale
In the Researcher entity, you can choose how to group publications using the Person ID Type Group setting. The available grouping types are WoS Researcher Profile, Name, and Unique ID. Each grouping method has historically offered different strengths, but all had limitations when it came to filtering by institutional affiliation—particularly if your goal was to analyze only the work a researcher conducted while affiliated with a specific institution.
Web of Science Researcher Profile Grouping
This grouping uses disambiguated researcher profiles from Web of Science, making it ideal for tracking the full body of work by an individual researcher, even when they publish under name variants. It includes a filter called Affiliated Organization, which can be misleading in its behavior. This filter is not applied at the publication level, but rather at the researcher level—it reflects the primary affiliation, meaning the institution listed on the researcher’s most recent publication.
As a result, applying the Affiliated Organization filter will return all publications associated with the researcher, regardless of whether they were actually affiliated with the selected institution at the time of each publication.
For example, if a researcher authored five publications at Institution A and ten at Institution B, and their latest paper lists Institution B, selecting Institution B as a Primary Affiliation filter will still return all 15 publications. There was no way to filter publications based on the actual institutional affiliation at the time of publication.
Name Grouping
This option groups publications by the combination of author name and affiliated organisation as it appears in the publication. It does allow filtering by organisation, but introduces other problems:
- A single researcher publishing under multiple name variants will appear as multiple separate records.
- Different researchers with the same name at the same institution are grouped together, making it impossible to distinguish between them.
- Unique identifiers like Web of Science Researcher ID and ORCID are not visible in this grouping.
This makes the name grouping unreliable for any analysis that depends on identifying unique individuals or attributing output accurately across time and institutions.
Unique ID Grouping
The Unique ID grouping was designed to allow search and grouping by RID or ORCID. However, it covered only a limited subset of researcher profiles—about 6 million out of more than 33 million. It also does not support filtering by organisation, making it unsuitable for institution-specific analysis.
What’s New – Detailed Guidance
1. Affiliation (at Time of Publication) Filter
Available in: Researchers → WoS Researcher Profile
This filter looks at the affiliation at time of publication and keeps only those documents—and the researchers attached to them—that match the institution(s) you choose.
- Why it matters – counts reflect the work produced for your organisation, even when a researcher has publications with another organization.
- How to use it – open the Researchers entity, confirm that WoS Researcher Profile is selected as the Person ID Type Group, expand Affiliation in the filter panel, pick one or more institutions, and apply. The researcher list and all metrics immediately adjust to show just the qualifying output.
- Good to know – works for both InCites Core Collection and any custom dataset; can be combined with year, subject, document-type, collaboration and other filters for deeper analysis.
Note on Data Coverage for Pre-2008 Publications in the New Affiliation Filter
The new Affiliation (at Time of Publication) filter uses structured links between authors and the affiliations listed on their publications. This linkage allows the filter to include only those documents where a researcher was explicitly affiliated with the selected organization at the time the work was published.
However, there is an important data coverage limitation for publications dated before 2008.
Why this matters:
- For publications from 2008 onwards, we consistently maintain structured links between each author and their corresponding unified affiliation.
- For older publications (pre-2008), while authors and addresses are both unified, the explicit links between individual authors and their respective affiliations may be missing—especially in cases where multiple authors and multiple affiliations are involved.
This means that:
- Some publications from before 2008 may be excluded when using the Affiliation filter—even if the researcher was correctly affiliated with the selected institution on those papers.
- As a result, when filtering by affiliation, the publication count may underrepresent the researcher’s historical output tied to your organization, particularly for earlier time periods.
Recommendation:
If your analysis requires viewing the full publication portfolio of a researcher—including older works before 2008—you should not apply the Affiliation filter. Instead, use the filter-free view within the Web of Science Researcher Profile grouping to ensure completeness.
A reference table is provided below to show the estimated percentage of author-affiliation link coverage by publication year. Note that while linkage rates are high post-2008, they are not guaranteed to be 100%, as some publications may lack complete affiliation or address metadata.
2. Unified Researcher Search by Name, Web of Science ResearcherID (RID) or ORCID
Available in:
- Researchers → WoS Researcher Profile – Header search
- Person Name or ID and Collaborations with People filters across all entities
- Edit Group (person)
- Researcher Report
Every search box linked to the WoS Researcher Profile—header search, filter search, group builder, Researcher Report—now understands names, Web of Science ResearcherID (RIDs) and ORCIDs interchangeably.
Behind the scenes the index has expanded from roughly 6 million to the full 33 million profiles. Paste an exact RID or ORCID to bypass name ambiguity and arrive at the right profile first time.
3. Standardization of Filter Labels, Indicator Names and Filter Order
To improve clarity and consistency across the platform, we have updated several filter and indicator names. These changes help ensure that naming accurately reflects behavior and data structure, particularly when working with affiliation-related data.
Key updates include:
- Primary Affiliation (Filter) – This is the new name for the filter previously labeled “Affiliated Organization.” It reflects the researcher’s most recent (primary) institutional affiliation, and is applied at the researcher level.
- Primary Affiliation (and others) (Indicator) – Previously labeled “Affiliation” this indicator shows all organizations a researcher has been affiliated with, with the primary affiliation listed first. It is not affected by filters.
- Primary Affiliation Country (and others) (Indicator) – Previously “Country or Region” this shows the countries of all affiliated organizations, with the country of the primary affiliation listed first. It is not affected by filters.
In addition to these changes, we have revised the names of many other filters across all entities to improve clarity and consistency. These changes affect filters across various grouping methodologies, not just in the Researcher entity. A complete list of updated filter names is provided in the table below.
One area where this inconsistency previously caused confusion is the Location filter. Depending on the entity or grouping method, it could either:
- Refer to the country listed in the author’s publication address, or
- Refer to the main country associated with the organization.
Because the label did not clearly distinguish these use cases, one could unknowingly apply the filter under the wrong assumption—leading to inaccurate or inconsistent results.
We have also reviewed and standardized the filter order across the application. Previously, filters appeared in different sequences depending on the entity or grouping, which could be disorienting and slow down workflows. Filters are now arranged in a more consistent and intuitive order, making it easier to locate and apply relevant filters regardless of context.
Table with Filter Name Changes
4. Hyperlinked Researcher Identifiers
Values in the Web of Science ResearcherID and ORCID columns are now live links. Clicking an RID opens the public Web of Science Researcher Profile; clicking an ORCID opens the corresponding ORCID record. This makes identity checks, record sharing, and further exploration effortless.
5. In-App Filter Descriptions
To support better understanding of how each filter behaves, we have added in-app descriptions for all filters across the platform. These descriptions provide concise definitions of what each filter does.
You’ll see these descriptions when you click on a filter in the Filters panel.
6. Deprecation of the Unique ID Grouping
The Unique ID grouping has now been marked as deprecated. While it is still visible and usable in the interface, it will no longer receive updates or new functionality.
This grouping was originally designed to support lookups by Web of Science ResearcherID (RID) and ORCID, but it was always limited in scope. Specifically, it covered only approximately 6.5 million researchers linked to about 47 million Web of Science documents, significantly less than the full Web of Science Researcher Profile dataset.
The reason for this limitation is that the Unique ID grouping draws data from the Contributor section, which is based on records processed from external ORCID data sources. This allowed users to view article counts consistent with what appears on the ORCID website and provided basic linkage between ORCID IDs and individual publications.
We now recommend using the Web of Science Researcher Profile grouping for a more robust, complete, and up-to-date experience. It supports:
- RID and ORCID-based searches,
- The new Affiliation (at Time of Publication) filter,
- Access to the full set of 33+ million disambiguated researcher profiles.
If you’ve created any saved analyses or dashboards using the Unique ID grouping, they will continue to work. However, to take advantage of the latest features and improvements, we strongly encourage you to migrate these to the Web of Science Researcher Profile grouping.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do some researchers now show fewer papers than before?
You have the Affiliation at Time of Publication filter active. Only papers co-affiliated with the institution(s) you selected are counted. Clear the filter to return to full career totals.
Do I still need the Primary Affiliation filter?
Yes. The Primary Affiliation filter (previously called Affiliated Organization) remains useful in many scenarios. It allows you to focus on researchers who are currently—or were most recently—affiliated with a specific institution, while still including all of their publications, regardless of which organisation they were affiliated with at the time of publication.
However, if you want to restrict results to only the subset of publications produced while a researcher was formally affiliated with your institution at the time of publication, use the new Affiliation filter instead. It provides publication-level attribution, enabling more precise, affiliation-specific analysis.
Will the Unique ID grouping disappear?
It remains visible for the moment, but is no longer evolving. Re-create saved analyses under Web of Science Researcher Profile to ensure full coverage and future-proofing.