Report: Open Funder Registry to Transition into Research Organization Registry (ROR)
From a Joint Post (via Crossref):
Today, we are announcing a long-term plan to deprecate the Open Funder Registry. For some time, we have understood that there is significant overlap between the Funder Registry and the Research Organization Registry (ROR), and funders and publishers have been asking us whether they should use Funder IDs or ROR IDs to identify funders. It has therefore become clear that merging the two registries will make workflows more efficient and less confusing for all concerned. Crossref and ROR are therefore working together to ensure that Crossref members and funders can use ROR to simplify persistent identifier integrations, to register better metadata, and to help connect research outputs to research funders.
Just yesterday, we published a summary of a recent workshop between funders and publishers on funding metadata workflows that we convened with the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and Sesame Open Science. As the report notes, “open funding metadata is arguably the next big thing” [in Open Science]. That being the case, we think this is the ideal time to strengthen our support of open funding metadata by beginning this transition to ROR.
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The many organizations whose tools, services, and workflows have been architected to use Funder Registry IDs will find this transition a challenge, and we don’t want to make light of that issue. Over the last ten years, we have encouraged the community to adopt Funder IDs, and the community has demonstrably recognized the benefits of doing so. Publishers have put a great deal of time, thought, and effort into collecting funder data and including it in Crossref metadata, and they have built internal reports and workflows around the Funder Registry. Both Crossref and ROR are committed to making the transition from the Funder Registry to the Research Organization Registry as simple as possible for those who have adopted the Funder Registry.
If you are not already using the Funder Registry and are planning to begin standardizing funding data, we recommend that you use ROR to identify funders. If you are currently using the Funder Registry in your systems and workflows, don’t worry! In the short term, and even in the medium term, Funder IDs aren’t going away. Eventually, however, the Funder Registry will cease to be updated, so any new funders will only be registrable in Crossref metadata with ROR IDs. Legacy Funder IDs and their mapping to ROR IDs will be maintained, so if Crossref members submit a legacy Funder ID, it will get mapped to a ROR ID automatically. Note, too, that Crossref is committed to maintaining the current funder API endpoints until ROR IDs become the predominant identifier for newly registered content.
In short, if you are already using Funder IDs, you can and should continue to do so. However, we do recommend that you begin looking at what it will take to integrate ROR into your systems and workflows for identifying funders. Think of it as warming up before a workout: it’s time to start swinging your arms and stretching your hamstrings.
Learn More, Read the Complete Post (about 1740 words)
Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Funding, News, Open Access, Reports

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.