Welcome back to our series of case studies of research funders using the Grant Linking System. In this interview, I talk with Cátia Laranjeira, PTCRIS Program Manager at FCCN|FCT, Portugal’s main public funding agency, about the agency’s approach to metadata, persistent identifiers, Open Science and Open Infrastructure.
With a holistic approach to the management, production and access to information on science, FCCN|FCT’s decision to implement the Grant Linking System within their processes was not simply a technical upgrade, but a coordinated effort to continue building a strong culture of openness. With the mantra “register once, reuse always”, FCCN|FCT efforts to embrace open funding metadata was only logical.
Repositories are home to a wide range of scholarly content; they often archive theses, dissertations, preprints, datasets, and other valuable outputs. These records are an important part of the research ecosystem and should be connected to the broader scholarly record. But to truly serve their purpose, repository records need to be connected to each other, to the broader research ecosystem, and to the people behind the research. Metadata is what makes that possible. Enhancing metadata is a way to tell a fuller, more accurate story of research. It helps surface relationships between works, people, funders, and institutions, and allows us as a community to build and use a more connected, more useful network of knowledge - what Crossref calls the ‘Research Nexus’.
The Crossref Grant Linking System (GLS) has been facilitating the registration, sharing and re-use of open funding metadata for six years now, and we have reached some important milestones recently! What started as an interest in identifying funders through the Open Funder Registry evolved to a more nuanced and comprehensive way to share and re-use open funding data systematically. That’s how, in collaboration with the funding community, the Crossref Grant Linking System was developed. Open funding metadata is fundamental for the transparency and integrity of the research endeavour, so we are happy to see them included in the Research Nexus.
Lots of exciting innovations are being made in scientific publishing, often raising fundamental questions about established publishing practices. In this guest post, Ludo Waltman and André Brasil discuss the recently launched MetaROR publish-review-curate platform and the questions it raises about good practices for Crossref DOI registration in this emerging landscape.
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 organisation and the funder identifier (where the funding organisation 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.
Incorrect: Here, the funder name and ROR id are nested - this is invalid.
<fr:assertion name="funder_name">National Science Foundation
<fr:assertion name="ror">https://ror.org/021nxhr62</fr:assertion>
</assertion>
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.
Deposits with award numbers or program years included in the funder_name will be processed with the funding data portion skipped and omitted. Please include the funder’s organisation name only.
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.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/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 Organisation 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 organisation 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.
<fr:program name="fundref">
<fr:assertion name="funder_name">National Institute on Drug Abuse
<fr:assertion name="funder_identifier">https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/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
<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.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/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 organisation 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.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/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 organisation 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.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/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 maintainer: Riley Marsh Last updated: 2025-April-21
