Research is rarely limited to a single contributor performing a single role. Behind every research output are people contributing in various ways: software development, data analyses, methodology design, and much more. Often, the same person contributes in several of these ways. Until now, Crossref metadata could only capture part of that picture, but this is changing with Schema 5.5.
Through user experience research (UXR) initiatives that take into account our diverse membership and community, we can have a continuous, deeper understanding of the role of metadata in our members’ workflows, and ensure that our work continues to meet our community’s needs. Your support is the key to this process, and will positively impact the wider community - and if you’d like to start today, you can take part in our latest initiative: help us improve our Events page by sharing your thoughts on the page’s feedback form.
Our 2026 Community Update took place on 13 May. Two calls, one for the eastern and one for the western time zone, highlighted how our global community is growing, how we’re refining the metadata that supports trust in the scholarly record, and connecting records more effectively through our latest tools.
Funding is one of the key enablers of the research lifecycle, but has been one of the hardest parts of the scholarly record to identify, describe and connect. This is slowly changing as we have recently reached a very exciting milestone for Crossref’s Grant Linking System (GLS). What makes it remarkable is not only the numbers reached, but where the data comes from. Research funders, who joined Crossref as members, have actively contributed more than 200,000 grants to the Research Nexus (Figure 1).
When Crossref was incorporated on 19 January 2000, the founders set out a simple promise: persistent, cross-publisher links between scholarly works. Ten years later, this booklet reflected on what that decision had built — the members who had joined, the DOIs registered, and the infrastructure that had taken shape.
Published in 2010 in English and Japanese editions, both reproduced below.
The founding — how a group of competing publishers agreed in 1999–2000 to run shared linking infrastructure, and why the not-for-profit, membership model was chosen from the start
First DOIs — the publishers, journals, and reference lists that made up the first wave of registered content
Membership growth — how participation expanded across publisher sizes, regions, and disciplines through the decade
Cross-publisher reference linking — the practical workflows that made citations work between members
Looking ahead from 2010 — what the founders and early members saw on the horizon for the second decade
Related anniversary content
For the Crossref at 25 short film (2025), see the 25th-anniversary video that picks up where this booklet left off.
