eLife receives £2.4m Wellcome funding for open publishing infrastructure
eLife has announced new funding from Wellcome to support the development of an open and collaborative ecosystem for alternative approaches to scholarly communication.
The non-profit organisation has been awarded a grant of £2.4m, including cover for indirect costs, to support a new initiative called eLife Pathways over the next three years. Wellcome is a founding funder and long-term supporter of eLife. According to the organisation, an additional private donor has also pledged funding that will contribute towards matching the Wellcome grant.
eLife said the investment recognises its work in developing open-source publishing technologies and will allow it to extend those tools to the wider research community.
Damian Pattinson, eLife Executive Director, says: “These investments represent a strong endorsement of the role eLife Pathways will play in transforming research communication. We have always invested in open-source infrastructure to support new publishing models, and this funding allows us to expand our offering in this area. There are many communities around the world keen to adopt new ways of sharing research so it is exciting to be able to provide solutions that meet their needs.”
Despite growing calls for greater openness in research communication, alternatives to traditional journals and publishing models remain limited. eLife argues that a lack of coordination among scholarly open-source technology providers has slowed the development of shared infrastructure capable of supporting systemic change.
The new eLife Pathways initiative aims to address this by helping to build an open publishing ecosystem. The programme will focus on three goals: enhancing eLife’s existing technologies so they can be used by the broader community; co-developing an open-source tool with significant community impact; and providing technology that supports critical community projects to encourage adoption across the ecosystem.
The first collaboration under the initiative will see eLife work with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) to develop a free tool that enables open-access journals to produce high-quality JATS XML, the industry standard used to structure and share research articles.
Many journals – particularly those in the Global South – struggle to meet JATS XML standards due to a lack of simple and affordable tools. This can limit their ability to be indexed and discovered. eLife Pathways aims to remove this barrier and support more equitable participation in scholarly publishing.
Paul Shannon, eLife Head of Technology and Innovation, says: “eLife Pathways will build on work that is currently supported by grants from COAR Notify and the NLnet Foundation, which together show the open science community’s belief in what we’re doing. Through our new and existing collaborations, we look forward to creating a world where innovation thrives, and where research is assessed responsibly and shared equitably.”
Kamran Naim, incoming Chair of eLife’s Board of Directors, adds: “Transforming research communication requires infrastructure that communities everywhere can rely on. Through eLife Pathways, we are investing in open, interoperable technologies that lower technical barriers and enable journals worldwide – particularly in under-resourced regions – to participate fully in a more equitable and connected research ecosystem. We’re grateful to Wellcome for recognising the importance of strengthening these foundations for the wider scholarly community.”