The Web of Science Name Change Policy

There is an increasing need to support a researcher’s ability to update published research to reflect their preferred known identity, be it in relation to marriage, gender identity or other reason. It is our goal at Clarivate™ to recognize any such update request as seamlessly as possible. We applaud the policy changes recently announced by the American Chemical Society, Association for Computing Machinery, Royal Society of Chemistry, eLife as these changes enable us to more easily support these requests.

Every author indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection™ is associated with an Author Record, whereby the data presented in their record is determined by the publications contained within it (e.g., their most recent published name). To manage the name that appears on an author record, the researcher can claim the author record to create or link it to their public profile, where they can enter their preferred known name. Their chosen name will then display on their Web of Science Author Record.

For situations where the originally published name is not being updated and can remain in the publication history, e.g., upon marriage, the researcher can update their profile to include the alternative or previous.

In a situation where an author needs to replace the originally published name in their Web of Science record(s) where a published correction is not appropriate, the request can be submitted by the author or on the author’s behalf by the publisher as a data correction request. We only require that the published material (i.e., full text PDF and article metadata on the journal website) reflects the change so that it can be verified. This policy applies to Web of Science Core Collection, BIOSIS, Zoological Record and the Data Citation Index™. Name change requests for content in databases hosted on the Web of Science should be directed to the hosted data provider.

Some name changes will have minimal effect on citation linking but that will not always be the case. At the time of the request, we will review citation linking so that cited references using the prior name continue to link to the updated Web of Science record

Any subsequent questions about citation linking can be submitted through the data correction form for review.