We’re providing a summary of the board’s July 2026 meeting. The July board meeting is our only in-person meeting. The board gathers for two days of strategic thinking and long-range planning, as well as conducting annual board business. This year, we focused on allocating surplus funds we have on hand to invest in a three-year project to redesign the content system. In a related discussion, we decided to lower content registration fees starting in 2027 because we’ve had a demonstrated history of generating surpluses, exceeding what we need to run Crossref. We also discussed the board structure, as part of our regular review of stakeholder governance. And we conducted annual board business, such as approving the audited financial statements and reviewed our risk register and mitigation plans.
The resolutions are available on the dedicated section of our website, which also lists the members of the Board and offers further information about our governance.
We also managed to squeeze in watching a World Cup game over dinner.
Starting today, funder names deposited in Crossref metadata without an identifier will be matched to ROR IDs, to support an open and connected Research Nexus. Funding information is an increasingly important part of the scholarly record. The improved matching strategy supports researchers, funders, institutions, and meta-researchers, who rely on that information to understand how research is supported and what outcomes that support produces.
Strengthening Scholarly Publishing in Africa is a collaborative webinar series bringing together ASSAf, Crossref, DOAJ, EIFL, and PKP to share practical guidance, resources, and approaches for strengthening the publishing ecosystem in the region. This series responds to the growing interest in open access, digital publishing, stronger editorial practices, and greater visibility of research publishing across Africa. Each partner organisation has long experience of building that capacity in the area of their expertise. In this series, we’re coming together to offer a more holistic learning experience to the community of African publishers, putting different aspects of the publishing process in their broader context.
We’ve had a year full of growth and reached a milestone of 60+ team members; let’s take a moment to digest what that means for people operations. Hiring staff in 19+ countries is no easy task, but we are up for it, and I can honestly say it is the main reason why our culture is so great. That might sound biased coming from Crossref’s first Head of Human Resources, but hear me out.
Our commitment to equity
Participation in Crossref—and all our services and metadata—must be accessible to everyone involved in documenting scholarly progress.
Meeting our mission of a truly global and connected research ecosystem means reducing the barriers to taking part.
Crossref membership is open to all organisations that produce scholarly and professional materials and content. But cost and technical capabilities can be barriers to joining, and where that’s the case, we aim to reduce these in a number of ways. These include: partnering with organisations such as the Public Knowledge Project to support plugins for OJS users; by developing our Sponsor program where members are supported by an organisation that aggregates our fees and provides local language and technical support.
The GEM Program: improving membership equitability and accessibility
The Global Equitable Membership (GEM) program offers relief from membership and content registration fees for members in the least economically-advantaged countries in the world. Members in GEM-eligible countries do not pay Crossref membership or content registration fees. As we move toward realizing the vision of a connected Research Nexus, building a network for the global community must include input from the entire community.
Background
For many years prior to GEM we had waived content registration fees via specific Sponsor agreements for members in some countries and accounted for that as “donated deposits” under a “fee assistance” program. Starting in January 2023, this was expanded to be consistent across the world and to encompass the annual membership fee, introduced as the GEM Program.
In January 2026, an additional 18 countries were added to the eligibility list. We have welcomed around 1000 members to the open research linking layer through Crossref since the program’s inception.
We will review these lists and the eligibility criteria annually and note any changes here. We will notify members whose country moves on or off the GEM Program of any upcoming fees (or the removal of fees) so they can plan and budget.
We ask for both mailing and billing addresses on our membership application form and both of these need to be in an eligible country (not necessarily the same one) in order to qualify.
GEM program specifics
Here are the details of what is waived and what is not, along with some answers to some frequently answered questions.
Q: Which fees are waived and which are not?
The annual membership fee is waived (irrespective of the member’s organisational size or revenue; it’s the country that determines the eligibility). All content registration fees are also waived for all record types. Participation in other paid services, such as Similarity Check and Metadata Plus, will be charged at the usual fees. Check out our standard fees to learn how much eligible members are saving. You can find out more about invoicing for GEM-eligible members on our Billing FAQs page
Q: Can GEM program members also work with a Sponsor?
The GEM program is open to independent members as well as members joining via a Sponsor. However, note that sponsors may only work with members who would normally be categorized in the lowest membership fee tier. Please also note that Sponsors may charge for their services (which include local language, technical, and other support), so it is important to discuss the terms with the Sponsor. Crossref will be actively seeking organisations to become Sponsors in GEM countries to build out support in these countries.
Join as a member
Find out more about your benefits and obligations as a member and apply today. If your mailing and billing adresses are in a GEM country you will automatically be exempt from membership and content registration fees.
Find out more about your benefits and obligations as a member and apply today. If your mailing and billing adresses are in a GEM country you will automatically be exempt from membership and content registration fees.