Blog

Crossref members over the years: a journey through space and time

Amanda Bartell – 2025 November 26

In CommunityMembership

Crossref was created back in 2000 by 12 forward-thinking scholarly publishers from North America and Europe, and by 2002, these members had registered 4 million DOI records. At the time of writing, we have over 23,600 members in 164 different countries. Half of our members are based in Asia, and 35% are universities or scholar-led. These members have registered over 176 million open metadata records with DOIs (as of today). What a difference 25 years makes!

In our 25th anniversary year, I thought it would be time to take a look at how we got here. And so—hold tight—we’re going to go on an adventure through space and time¹, stopping every 5 years through Crossref history to check in on our members. And we’re going to see some really interesting changes over the years.

2005

Let’s go back twenty years to 2005. Crossref has been running for five years, and at this point, we have just 318 members from 31 countries, with 18 million DOI records already registered. These members and the Crossref infrastructure are supported by five Crossref employees based in just two countries—the US and the UK.

In 2005, the majority of our members are based in North America, Northern Europe and Western Europe, and they are mostly publishers or societies. Our sponsor program doesn’t yet exist, so all members pay a membership fee directly to Crossref. Our membership fee structure is the same as it is today—we have tiered membership fees so our members can contribute to our infrastructure based on their capacity to pay. At this point, half of our members are eligible for our lowest fee tier.

2005 at a glance

• 318 members from 31 countries.
• 18 million DOI records registered.
• Supported by five Crossref employees based in two countries - the US and the UK.
• The majority (89%) are based in North America or Northern & Western Europe.
• Half are eligible for our lowest fee tier.
• Mostly societies (40%) and publishers (33%).

2010

Let’s move on by five years to 2010. By this stage, Crossref membership had grown to 1101 members from 69 countries, and these members have now registered 44 million DOI records. They are now supported by 14 Crossref employees, still all located in either the US or the UK.

We’re starting to see some changes in where our members are based. You’ll remember that back in 2005, 89% of Crossref members were based in North America, Northern Europe or Western Europe. By 2010, that percentage has dropped to 63%, and we’re seeing the number of members based in Asia starting to grow. In 2005, only 4% of our members were based in Asia, but by 2010, 18% of our members are based there, with 93 members in the Republic of Korea alone.

By 2010, the percentage of members who are eligible for our lowest fee tier has grown to 78%, so we are seeing smaller and less well-funded organisations starting to join. The types of organisations joining hasn’t changed significantly—members are still mostly societies and publishers. However, we are starting to see universities and scholar-led organisations beginning to join.

2010 at a glance

• 1,101 members from 69 countries.
• 44 million DOI records registered.
• Supported by 14 Crossref employees based in two countries - the US and the UK.
• Growth of members based in Asia (18%).
• Smaller, less well-funded organisations starting to join - 78% eligible for our lowest fee tier.
• Still mostly societies (37%) and publishers (28%), but universities and scholar-led members starting to emerge (23%).

2015

Jumping ahead another five years to 2015, we see Crossref membership has grown to over 3,000 members from 93 countries, with registered DOI records exceeding 77 million. These members and the Crossref infrastructure are supported by 28 employees, still all based in the US and UK.

Membership in Asia has now really taken off, and Asian organisations now account for 38% of all Crossref members. We also see membership in Latin America emerging, representing 12% of our membership. We have members from 12 different countries in Latin America in 2015, but the most significant number are from Brazil, with 274 members.

Our formal Sponsor program started to emerge from 2012 onwards. Our Sponsor program supports members who are otherwise eligible for our lowest fee tier and provides financial, technical and language support to organisations that would otherwise face barriers to membership. By 2015, we have 26 sponsors in 14 countries, and 20% of all members are working with us through a Sponsor. This is one of the drivers behind smaller, less well-funded members joining Crossref. We really see a leap here in 2015 with over 90% of members now eligible for our lowest fee tier.

Around 2015, we also begin to see an interesting shift in the types of organisations that are becoming members. Increasingly, our new members are university-based, and that type of member organisation has overtaken the publisher group in number for the first time. However, societies still make up the largest number of members.

2015 at a glance

• 3,134 members from 93 countries.
• 77 million DOI records.
• Supported by 28 Crossref employees based in two countries - US and UK.
• Growth in Asia (38%) and members in Latin America (12%) starting to emerge.
• Leap in smaller, less well-funded members - 92% eligible for the lowest fee tier.
• Sponsor program emerges - 26 sponsors in 14 countries.
• Rise of university and scholar-led members (29%) - overtaking publishers (21%). Societies (31%) are still the largest group.

2020

Can you believe we’re already in 2020? Crossref now has almost 12,000 members in 133 countries, with registered DOI records totalling over 120 million! These members and the Crossref infrastructure are now supported by 43 employees across five countries, with Ireland, Germany, and France added to our staff locations.

Almost half of our members are based in Asia at this time, driven by growth from Indonesia, where we have 1681 members in 2020. Our sponsor program now contains 77 sponsors across 32 countries, including our first sponsor in North Africa.

We can now really see how membership is weighted towards smaller, less well-funded organisations: 97% of members are eligible for the lowest fee tier, and 57% choose to work with a sponsor.

By 2020, we also see a fundamental change in the types of organisations that are Crossref members. Societies no longer account for the largest share of our members, with both universities and publishers overtaking them. In 2016, we updated our schema to enable members to register records for preprints (and connect them to an article where relevant). By 2020, 65 members are registering preprints, and many preprint repositories have already become members.

2020 at a glance

• 11,976 members from 133 countries.
• 120 million DOI records.
• Supported by 43 Crossref employees in five countries - France, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and the US.
• 46% of members based in Asia.
• 77 sponsors in 32 countries, first sponsor in N Africa.
• Membership heavily weighted to smaller, less well-funded organisations - 97% eligible for the lowest fee tier and 57% working through a sponsor.
• Universities and scholar-led are now the largest group (37%), followed by publishers (29%) and societies (24%).

2025

And so we find ourselves back in the present day.

With such steady growth, it’s pretty easy to predict almost exactly how many members we will have by 31st December 2025. By year-end, we would expect to have 23,800 members in 164 countries, with registered DOI records totalling around 177 million. With recent hiring, these members and our infrastructure will be supported by 52 Crossref employees in 14 different countries.

Member organisations are now a real mix, with museums, hospitals, botanic gardens, banks, and many more joining. The largest proportion remains those at a university or scholar-led (35%), but interestingly, we see the percentage who consider themselves to be societies starting to fall (19%) and publishers starting to grow again (29%).

And we see the arrival of a new type of member - since the launch of the Grant Linking System in 2019, we now see Research Funders joining Crossref in order to register identifiers for individual grants. These grant identifiers can then be included in the metadata for published content to uniquely identify the funding source, providing context and trust signals for the content, and fleshing out the Research Nexus. We currently have 45 funders who have registered over 175,000 grant records.

By 2025 we have 129 sponsors in 51 countries - including our first sponsors in East and West Africa who joined in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Half of all members are now based in Asia. 98% of members are now eligible for our lowest fee tier and 57% are working with us through a sponsor.

In 2023, we launched our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program, which offers relief from any membership and content registration fees for organisations in the least economically advantaged countries in the world. We use the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) list as our data source for countries to include in the program. When we launched the program, 187 existing members moved under the program. Since the program’s focus is to enable participation for those who would otherwise find Crossref unaffordable, we are happy that we now have 583 organisational members in the GEM Program, showing the growth in participation from lower-income nations. Most members in the GEM Program are based in Southern Asia (48%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (33%).

November 2025 at a glance

• 23,622 members in 164 countries.
• 175 million DOI records.
• Supported by 52 Crossref employees from 14 countries - Armenia, Austria, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, the UK, and the US.
• 51% of members are based in Asia.
• 129 sponsors in 51 countries - first sponsors in East and West Africa.
• 98% of members are eligible for the lowest fee tier, and 57% working through a sponsor.
• Real mix of organisation types - universities and scholar-led (35%), publishers (29%), societies (19%), but also research funders, museums, pharmaceutical companies, news agencies, and more!

Changes over the years

Here are some of that data over time, depicted in charts.

2026 and beyond

As you can see from our adventure through space and time, the types of organisations that work with Crossref have changed significantly over the years as the scholarly communications world has evolved. Our members now tend to be university-based research-performing organisations or scholar-led journals, based in Asia, and with low or zero publishing revenues (and volumes).

To meet our mission of a truly global and connected research ecosystem, it is essential to ensure that participation in Crossref and all our services and metadata is accessible to everyone involved in documenting scholarly progress.

We want to ensure that access to the Crossref infrastructure is equitable, so we are making two key changes in 2026: we’re extending eligibility for the GEM Program (more to follow), and we are introducing a new, lower-fee tier as an outcome of the RCFS projects more here.

We’re excited to see how our members will change as we head into our next 25 years—we hope you’ll continue with us on our journey and welcome all kinds of new members to the expansive and vibrant Crossref community.