As Crossref celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, we are highlighting some of the most active and engaged regions in our global community.
Over the past 25 years, the makeup of Crossref membership has evolved significantly; founded by a handful of large publishers, we now have more than 24,000 members representing 165 countries. Nearly two-thirds of them self-identify as universities, libraries, government agencies, foundations, scholar publishers, and research institutions.
It’s been said that Americans are unusual in tending to ask “Where do you work?” as an initial question upon introduction to a new acquaintance, indicating a perhaps unhealthy preoccupation with work as identity. But in the context of published research, “What is this author’s affiliation?” is a question of global importance that goes beyond just wanting to know the name – and perhaps prestige level – of the place a researcher works.
As Crossref membership continues to grow, finding ways to help organisations participate is an important part of our mission. Although Crossref membership is open to all organisations that produce scholarly and professional materials, cost and technical challenges can be barriers to joining for many.
Crossref runs open infrastructure to link research objects, entities, and actions, creating a lasting and reusable scholarly record that underpins open science. Together with our 24,000 members in 165 countries, we drive metadata exchange and support 2 billion monthly API queries, facilitating global research communication, for the benefit of society.
