As ResearchGate is a professional network, your profile represents your professional identity.
Your name plays a few different roles apart from being displayed on your profile. It’s how others can search for your profile and publications, it’s displayed in the author lists of your publications, used in your profile’s URL, and is used to confirm your authorship of your publications.
That’s why we require members to use their real name without academic titles or abbreviations.
How to change your name
You can edit your name in a few easy steps:
- Go to your profile and click on Edit at the top of your profile, to the right of your name
- Click Edit name
- Update your name and click Save to confirm your changes.
Note: For security reasons, you can only change your name once within a 30-day period.
How does name-matching work?
Our name-matching algorithm is responsible for automatically attaching publications to the correct profile, and for allowing publication claiming. This works by matching your profile name or alternative name to the name on your publication’s author list.
If the name you've published under doesn't match your account name exactly, publications you claim can sometimes be put into a queue while we manually verify authorship.
To make name-matching more accurate, we don't allow the addition of titles such as Dr. or Prof. to your name on ResearchGate.
What's the difference between my name and my alternative name?
Your name is the name you are known as professionally. It's displayed on your profile and helps your co-authors, colleagues, and peers recognize you and your contributions on ResearchGate.
Your alternative name represents any other name you've published under.
When adding publications to your profile, you may have trouble confirming authorship of your work if the name you published under doesn't match your account name. Adding an alternative author name can simplify this process.
How do I add an alternative author name?
You can add an alternative name in a few easy steps:
- Go to your profile and click on Edit at the top of your profile, to the right of your name
- Click Edit name
- Click Add alternative name if you don’t already have one
- Fill out the name fields under Alternative name and click Save.
Note: For security reasons, you can only change your name once within a 30-day period.
You can now more easily claim publications that you published under either name.