Funder ID: The Crossref Funder Registry and ROR

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The Crossref Funder Registry is a controlled vocabulary of approximately 30,000 funder names worldwide, structured as a hierarchical taxonomy (a funder, its sub-divisions, and aliases). Each funder is identified by a numeric ID under a DOI-style prefix (e.g. 10.13039/100000001 for the US National Science Foundation). Publishers and authors select funders from this list at submission so that the resulting Crossref deposit carries machine-readable funder information. ROR records increasingly carry the Funder ID crosswalk to enable joint queries.

In September 2023, Crossref announced the Open Funder Registry is transitioning into the Research Organization Registry (ROR): existing Funder IDs continue to be maintained and are auto-mapped to ROR IDs, but new funder-identification infrastructure is being built ROR-first. Publishers and systems adopting funder metadata going forward are encouraged to use ROR IDs, with the Funder ID crosswalk preserved for backward compatibility.

References

Crossref, ‘Funder Registry’ (crossref.org/services/funder-registry).
Crossref, ‘Open Funder Registry to transition into Research Organization Registry (ROR)’, crossref.org/blog, September 2023.
Paskin N., ‘Funder Identifiers for Scholarly Communication’, PLOS Blog, 2013.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Funder ID?

A Funder ID is a numeric identifier assigned to a funding organization in the Crossref Funder Registry, a controlled vocabulary of about 30,000 funder names structured as a hierarchical taxonomy of funders, their sub-divisions, and aliases. Publishers and authors select a funder from this list at submission so the resulting Crossref deposit carries machine-readable funder information.

Is a FundRef ID the same thing as a Funder ID?

Yes. FundRef ID and Crossref Funder Registry ID are both alternate names for the same identifier issued by the Crossref Funder Registry.

What format does a Funder ID use?

A Funder ID takes the form of a DOI-style prefix, for example 10.13039/100000001 for the US National Science Foundation. This lets funder identifiers be referenced and resolved the same way as other DOI-based scholarly identifiers.

Is the Crossref Funder Registry being replaced by ROR?

The registry is not being shut down, but Crossref announced in September 2023 that it is transitioning toward ROR (Research Organization Registry): existing Funder IDs continue to be maintained and are auto-mapped to ROR IDs, while new funder-identification infrastructure is being built ROR-first.

Should new systems use a Funder ID or a ROR ID?

Crossref recommends that publishers and systems adopting funder metadata going forward use ROR IDs rather than Funder IDs, while keeping the Funder ID crosswalk in place for backward compatibility with existing records. ROR records increasingly carry this crosswalk to enable joint queries between the two identifier schemes.

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Funder ID"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funder-id" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funder-id",
  "name": "Funder ID",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funder-id",
  "description": "An identifier from the Crossref Funder Registry (formerly FundRef), a curated, open registry of funder names and identifiers used by publishers to tag deposited works with the funders that supported them.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funder-id",
  "sameAs": [
    "Crossref Funder Registry ID",
    "FundRef ID"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-08-15T04:42:36",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}