Retractions and corrections from Retraction Watch are now available in Crossref’s REST API. Back in September 2023, we announced the acquisition of the Retraction Watch database with an ongoing shared service. Since then, they have sent us regular updates, which are publicly available as a csv file. Our aim has always been to better integrate these retractions with our existing metadata, and today we’ve met that goal.
This is the first time we have supplemented our metadata with a third-party data source.
As a provider of foundational open scholarly infrastructure, Crossref is an adopter of the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI). In December 2024 we posted our updated POSI self-assessment. POSI provides an invaluable framework for transparency, accountability, susatinability and community alignment. There are 21 other POSI adopters.
Together, we are now undertaking a public consultation on proposed revisions for a version 2.0 release of the principles, which would update the current version 1.
https://doi.org/10.13003/axeer1ee
In our previous entry, we explained that thorough evaluation is key to understanding a matching strategy’s performance. While evaluation is what allows us to assess the correctness of matching, choosing the best matching strategy is, unfortunately, not as simple as selecting the one that yields the best matches. Instead, these decisions usually depend on weighing multiple factors based on your particular circumstances. This is true not only for metadata matching, but for many technical choices that require navigating trade-offs.
Looking back over 2024, we wanted to reflect on where we are in meeting our goals, and report on the progress and plans that affect you - our community of 21,000 organisational members as well as the vast number of research initiatives and scientific bodies that rely on Crossref metadata.
In this post, we will give an update on our roadmap, including what is completed, underway, and up next, and a bit about what’s paused and why.
Funders can be represented three ways: 1) the ROR id, 2) the funder name, or 3) the funder name nested with the funder identifier. Since the Open Funder Registry is transitioning into ROR, using the ROR id to identify funders is the preferred method.
If you are not using a ROR id, funding metadata must include the name of the funding organization and the funder identifier (where the funding organization is listed in the Registry), and should include an award/grant number or grant identifier. Funder names should only be deposited without the accompanying ID if the funder is not found in the Registry. While members can deposit the funder name without the identifier, those records will not be considered valid until such a time as the funder is added to the database and they are redeposited (updated) with an ID. What that means is that they will not be found using the filters on funding information that we support via our REST API, or show up in our Open Funder Registry search.
Correct nesting of funder names and identifiers is essential as it significantly impacts how funders, funder identifiers, and award numbers are related to each other. If you use the ROR id to identify funders, this nesting is not neccessary and invalid.
Here are some examples in order of most to least preferred:
**Correct**: In this example, funder "National Science Foundation" is associated with the ROR id https://ror.org/021nxhr62. No name should be added.
The purpose of funder groups is to establish relationships between funders and award numbers. A funder group assertion should only be used to associate funder names and identifiers with award numbers when multiple funders are present.
Funding data deposit with one group of funders (no “fundgroup” needed):
Funding data deposit with two fundgroups:
Incorrect: Groups used to associate funder names with funder identifiers, these need to be nested as described above.
Deposits using a funder_identifier that is not taken from the Open Funder Registry will be rejected.
Deposits with only funder_name (no funder_identifier) will not appear in funder search results in Open Funder Registry search or the REST API.
The <fr:program> element in the deposit schema section (see documentation) supports the import of the fundref.xsd schema (see documentation). The fundref namespace (xmlns:fr=https://www.crossref.org/fundref.xsd) must be included in the schema declaration, for example:
The fundref.xsd consists of a series of nested <fr:assertion> tags with enumerated name attributes. The name attributes are:
fundgroup: used to group a funder and its associated award number(s) for items with multiple funders.
ror: identifier of the funding agency as it appears in the Research Organization Registry (ROR). To be used instead of nested funder_name and funder_identifier.
funder_name: name of the funding agency as it appears in the funding Registry. Funder names that do not match those in the registry will be accepted to cover instances where the funding organization is not listed.
funder_identifier: funding agency identifier in the form of a DOI, must be nested within the funder_name assertion. The funder_identifier must be taken from the funding Registry and cannot be created by the member. Deposits without funder_identifier or ror do not qualify as funding records.
award_number: grant number or other fund identifier
Either rororfunder_name and funder_identifier must be present in a deposit where the funding body is listed in the Open Funder Registry. Multiple funder_name, funder_identifier, and award_number assertions may be included.
In this example, funder National Institute on Drug Abuse with funder identifier https://doi.org/10.13039/100000026 is associated with award number JQY0937263:
<fr:program name="fundref">
<fr:assertion name="funder_name">National Institute on Drug Abuse
<fr:assertion name="funder_identifier">https://doi.org/10.13039/100000026</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">JQY0937263</fr:assertion>
</fr:program>
If multiple funder and award combinations exist, each combination should be deposited within a fundgroup to ensure that the award number is associated with the appropriate funder(s). In this example, two funding groups exist:
Funder National Science Foundation with ROR id https://ror.org/021nxhr62 is associated with award numbers CBET-106 and CBET-106, and
Funder Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy with funder identifier https://doi.org/10.13039/100006151 is associated with award number 1245-ABDS.
<fr:program name="fundref">
<fr:assertion name="fundgroup">
<fr:assertion name="ror">https://ror.org/021nxhr62</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">CBET-106</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">CBET-7259</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="fundgroup">
<fr:assertion name="funder_name">Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy
<fr:assertion name="funder_identifier">https://doi.org/10.13039/100006151</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">1245-ABDS</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
</fr:program>
Items with multiple funder names but no award numbers may be deposited without a fundgroup.
At a minimum, a funding data deposit must contain either a roror a funder_name and funder_identifier assertion, and using the ROR id is preferred. Deposits with just an award_number assertion are not allowed. A ror or nested funder_name\funder_identifierandaward_number should be included in deposits whenever possible. If a ROR id is used, it should not include a funder_name or funder_identifier.
If the funder name cannot be matched in ROR or the Open Funder Registry, you may submit funder_name only, and the funding body will be reviewed and considered for addition to the official Registry. Until it is added to the Registry, the deposit will not be considered a valid funding record and will not appear in funding search or the REST API.
As demonstrated in Example 3 below, items with several award numbers associated with a single funding organization should be grouped together by enclosing the funder_name, funder_identifier, and award_number(s) within a fundgroup assertion.
Some rules will be enforced by the deposit logic, including:
Nesting of the<fr:assertion>elements: the schema allows infinite nesting of the assertion element to accommodate nesting of an element within itself. Deposit code will only allow 3 levels of nesting (with attribute values of fundgroup, funder_name, and funder_identifier)
Values of different<fr:assertion>elements: funder_name, funder_identifier, and award_number may have deposit rules imposed
Only valid funder identifiers will be accepted: the funder_identifier value will be compared against the Open Funder Registry file. If the funder_identifier is not found, the deposit will be rejected.
If funding metadata is incorrect or out-of-date, it may be updated by redepositing the metadata. Be sure to redeposit all available metadata for an item, not just the elements being updated. A DOI may be updated without resubmitting funding metadata, as previously deposited funding metadata will remain associated with the DOI.
Funding metadata may be deleted by redepositing an item with an empty <fr:program name="fundref"> element:
The <fr:program> element captures funding data. It should be placed before the <doi_data> element. This deposit contains minimal funding data - one ror must be present; it is recommended over using funder_name and funder_identifier.
This example contains one funder_name and one funder_identifier. Note that the funder_identifier is nested within the funder_name assertion, establishing https://doi.org/10.13039.100000001 as the funder identifier for funder name National Science Foundation. Two award numbers are present.
This example contains one ror (for the National Science Foundation) and one funder_name/identifier (for Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy) with two award_numbers for each funder. Each funding organization is within its own fundgroup.
<fr:program name="fundref">
<fr:assertion name="fundgroup">
<fr:assertion name="ror">https://ror.org/021nxhr62</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">CBET-106</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">CBET-7259</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="fundgroup">
<fr:assertion name="funder_name">Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy
<fr:assertion name="funder_identifier">https://doi.org/10.13039/100006151</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">1245-ABDS</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">98562-POIUB</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
</fr:program>
Page owner: Riley Marsh | Last updated 2025-February-10
