Crossref launches Global Equitable Membership programme
To enable organisations from the least financially-advantaged countries to participate in the global community documenting the progress of scholarship, Crossref announces a program of free membership and content registration.
Crossref, whose vision is a rich and reusable open scholarly record that the global community can build on forever, for the benefit of society, announces that, starting in January, organisations located in any of 58 countries on its curated list will be eligible to join as full members, and register their content and related metadata free of charge. The new scheme is known as the Global Equitable Membership (GEM) programme, and it will be available for new organisations and automatically applied to 187 existing members.
Crossref is the largest provider of permanent identifiers, or DOIs for scholarly content, and enables registration of rich metadata underpinning scholarly works. The programme expands on former arrangements created in partnership with organisations such as INASP and African Journals Online (AJOL), who also work with scholars in some of the least financially-advantaged countries in the world.
GEM adds to other Crossref’s initiatives that seek to help organisations publishing professional and scholarly content to overcome barriers to contributing to the global scholarly record, including the sponsors programme, and a long-lasting partnership with the Public Knowledge Project, that help alleviate different aspects of financial, administrative and technical challenges organisations in many parts of the globe experience.
“Finding ways to help organisations participate in Crossref is an important part of our mission and approach. I’m glad that we’re able to offer the Global Equitable Membership programme to those for whom financial barriers may prove exclusive from contributing their part to the research nexus, or a rich network of scholarly metadata and relationships.
“Having worked with our sponsors programme for a number of years, I see financial obstacles are only a part of challenges organisations face. Technical or administrative burdens are not easily overcome either. I would love to hear from organisations present in GEM-eligible countries, who might consider becoming a sponsor or otherwise support local colleagues in documenting the scholarly record” says Susan Collins, Community Engagement Manager at Crossref, managing the Sponsors and GEM programs.
The list of countries included in the programme is curated based on sources such as theInternational Development Association (IDA), and therefore will be reviewed annually, in line with latest data on countries’ economic health progress.
