“The Registering Researchers Task Group aims to create a concise report that summarizes the benefits and trade-offs of emerging approaches to the problem of incomplete national authority files. Background: National name authority files are incomplete. Many researchers—tenured and non-tenured faculty and graduate students—are only partially represented in national name authority files. National name authority files cover poorly authors of journal articles and exclude researchers who do not publish but who create or contribute to data sets and other research activities. Uniquely identifying the academic authors of all publications, including journal articles, and researchers who do not publish, facilitates compiling individuals’ scholarly output, especially as their affiliations change over time. The scholarly output is a factor in the reputation and ranking of the scholar’s affiliated institution.”