When you create a plan in DMPTool and start typing your institution’s name into the organization field, or select a funder from the template list, the tool is quietly doing more than filling in a text box. Since its Summer 2020 release, DMPTool has matched participating organizations and funders against two persistent-identifier registries — the Research Organization Registry (ROR) and the Crossref Funder Registry — so that the plan you export carries a machine-resolvable identifier alongside the plain-text name. This guide explains what those two registries are, what DMPTool’s integration actually does and does not auto-fill, and why the identifiers end up mattering more than the convenience of not having to type your university’s name correctly.
What ROR actually is
The Research Organization Registry (ROR) is a free, community-governed registry of persistent identifiers for research organizations — universities, funders, hospitals, research institutes, and any other organization that conducts, funds, or otherwise touches research. It launched in January 2019 out of a collaboration between the California Digital Library (the same organization that operates DMPTool), Crossref, DataCite, and Digital Science, which donated the GRID organization database under a CC0 license as ROR’s initial data source. ROR is openly governed through a Steering Group and Community Advisory Group drawn from Crossref, DataCite, and CDL rather than run by a single commercial entity.
Each organization in ROR gets a stable identifier in the form https://ror.org/0xxxxxxx. Unlike a plain-text institution name — which can be abbreviated, misspelled, translated, or merged across a name change without any two systems agreeing on which string is authoritative — a ROR ID resolves to exactly one record no matter how the name is later typed or renamed. That is the property every downstream system (a funder’s grant database, a publisher’s metadata, DMPTool’s own plan export) actually needs: something to match against, not just something to display.
What the Crossref Funder Registry is, and its consolidation into ROR
The Crossref Funder Registry (formerly branded FundRef) is a companion registry, also run by Crossref, that assigns identifiers specifically to grant-giving organizations — funders, foundations, and government agencies — so that a funded publication’s metadata can record which body paid for the work in a structured, machine-readable way. On its own it has issued roughly 44,000 funder identifiers.
Because ROR and the Funder Registry overlap heavily — a great many organizations are simultaneously a research institution and a funder — Crossref announced in September 2023 a long-term plan to fold the Funder Registry into ROR rather than keep maintaining two separate identifier systems that publishers and funders had to reconcile against each other. ROR had already been importing and reconciling Funder Registry data since 2022, and Crossref members can now use a ROR ID anywhere they previously used a Funder ID in Crossref metadata. The Funder Registry’s existing technical infrastructure remains available for the time being, but new systems and workflows — DMPTool’s integration among them — are built around ROR IDs going forward rather than treating the two registries as permanently separate. In practice, this means a funder your plan references may be represented by a Funder Registry ID, a ROR ID, or both, depending on when and how that funder’s record was created.
How DMPTool’s organization and funder lookup actually works
DMPTool integrated both registries as part of its Summer 2020 release. At the time of that release, DMPTool reported having matched 1,582 unique organizations in its system to their ROR or Funder Registry identifiers, and used the same effort to reconcile 4,750 previously unaffiliated user accounts with their host institution by matching each user’s email domain to an organization record. That was a one-time cleanup at launch, but the underlying matching capability — organization name and email domain resolving to a registry identifier — is the mechanism the ongoing lookup fields still use.
In practice, when you use DMPTool today:
- Primary research organization field. Per DMPTool’s own quick-start guidance, this field is pre-populated automatically if your account is already associated with a participating institution; you can clear it and choose a different organization from the lookup list if needed. Selecting an organization is also what surfaces that institution’s customized guidance text and templates, where a participating institution has configured them.
- Funder selection. Choosing a funder from DMPTool’s supported list can present a secondary dropdown when that funder has separate requirements for specific programs or directorates — DMPTool cites NSF and DOE as examples of funders whose sub-program requirements are handled this way.
- Contributor affiliation. When you add a plan contributor, DMPTool asks for their name, email, ORCID iD if they have one, and affiliation if it differs from your own institution — the same identifier-first pattern applied at the individual level that ROR applies at the organizational level.
What DMPTool’s own published documentation does not spell out in field-by-field detail is the complete list of which specific plan fields are populated purely from the ROR/Funder Registry match versus which remain free text. The confirmed, documented mechanics are the pre-population and lookup behavior above, plus the identifier-matching described next — treat any more granular claim about DMPTool’s internal field mapping as unconfirmed unless you see it directly in DMPTool’s current help documentation, since underlying UI details can change between releases.
Why the auto-fill matters more than convenience
The practical payoff of matching an organization or funder to a registry identifier isn’t just fewer keystrokes — it’s that the identifier travels with the plan. DMPTool has stated that these organization and funder identifiers are carried through into its machine-actionable DMP (maDMP) JSON export, built to the RDA DMP Common Standard, which is what enables API-level integrations between a DMPTool plan and other systems (an institutional repository, a grants system, a funder’s own reporting pipeline) rather than requiring a human to re-key the same institution and funder names into each one.
This is the same underlying rationale for identifier infrastructure generally: a data management plan that names “University of California, Berkeley” as the institution and “National Science Foundation” as the funder in free text is readable by a person but ambiguous to software — is that the same “UC Berkeley” referenced elsewhere with a different abbreviation? A ROR-typed identifier removes that ambiguity, which is exactly why funders and repositories increasingly expect structured, resolvable identifiers rather than plain names in machine-actionable DMPs, publication metadata, and grant records generally.
Practical guidance for researchers and research offices
- Check the pre-filled organization, don’t just accept it. If your account was matched to an institution via email domain at some point in the past, confirm it’s still the correct, current organization record before submitting a plan — especially after an institutional name change, merger, or if you hold appointments at more than one institution.
- Select from the lookup list rather than typing free text where possible. Choosing your organization or funder from DMPTool’s suggested matches is what actually attaches the registry identifier; typing a name that happens to match the display text of a registry entry may not be treated the same as selecting the matched record, depending on the interface.
- If your institution isn’t matched, that’s worth flagging to your library or research office. A missing or incorrect ROR match means your plan’s exported metadata won’t carry a resolvable organization identifier, which matters if your institution or funder later consumes maDMP exports programmatically.
- Don’t confuse “DMPTool has a ROR ID for my organization” with “my organization has correctly registered and curated its own ROR record.” Those are two different things — DMPTool consumes the ROR registry, it doesn’t maintain it. See CASRAI’s guide on registering a ROR ID for an institution if your organization’s own record needs to be created or corrected.
- Remember the underlying registry landscape is still shifting. Because the Crossref Funder Registry is being consolidated into ROR rather than retired outright on a fixed date, a funder you select in DMPTool today may be represented by a legacy Funder Registry ID, a ROR ID, or both — this is a registry-level transition, not something DMPTool controls on its own.
Frequently asked questions
What is a ROR ID and why does it matter in a data management plan?
A ROR ID is a persistent, resolvable identifier for a research organization, issued by the Research Organization Registry. In a DMP, it disambiguates which institution or funder is actually meant — removing the ambiguity of free-text names — and is what allows the plan’s exported metadata to be matched programmatically against other systems that also use ROR.
Is the Crossref Funder Registry still used, or has it been replaced by ROR?
Both currently exist. Crossref announced a long-term plan in September 2023 to consolidate the Funder Registry into ROR, and has been importing Funder Registry data into ROR since 2022, but the Funder Registry’s existing infrastructure remains available for now. New integrations, including DMPTool’s, are increasingly built around ROR IDs rather than treating the two as permanently separate systems.
Does DMPTool require my institution to have a ROR ID before I can use it?
No. You can create a standalone DMPTool account and select an organization or funder from the lookup list, or leave a field as free text, even if no clean registry match exists. A registry match improves the structured metadata in your exported plan, but it is not a precondition for using DMPTool to write a plan.
Are ROR IDs and Funder IDs actually included when I export my plan?
DMPTool has stated that matched organization and funder identifiers are carried into its machine-actionable DMP (maDMP) JSON export, built to the RDA DMP Common Standard. If you need to confirm this for a specific export, check the JSON output itself or DMPTool’s current documentation, since export formats can be revised between releases.
What if I select the wrong organization or funder by mistake?
You can clear the pre-populated organization field and search the lookup list again, or reselect a different funder before completing your plan. Because the identifier match is tied to whichever record you actually select, re-selecting the correct one corrects the metadata that gets attached to the plan.
References
- DMPTool Blog, “Summer 2020 DMPTool Release” (blog.dmptool.org/2020/06/25/summer-2020-dmptool-release/).
- DMPTool, Quick Start Guide for Researchers (dmptool.org/quick_start_guide).
- Research Organization Registry, About and FAQ pages (ror.org/about/, ror.org/about/faqs/).
- Crossref Blog, “Open Funder Registry to transition into Research Organisation Registry (ROR)” and “RORing ahead: using ROR in place of the Open Funder Registry” (crossref.org/blog/).
