Improving the Quality of Open Funding Metadata: A Call to Action

May 26, 2026


Open funding metadata plays a critical role in transparency, accountability, and interoperability across the research ecosystem. Yet despite growing recognition of its importance, the systems and workflows that connect funding information to research outputs remain fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to scale.

The Working Group on Funding Metadata of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information is pleased to share Improving the Quality of Open Funding Metadata: A Call to Action. The Call to Action presents a concise summary outlining the importance of funding metadata, the key barriers affecting its quality and coverage, and a set of recommendations for stakeholders across the scholarly communication ecosystem: publishers, funders, institutions / libraries and infrastructure providers.

Accompanying the Call to Action is a background document presenting more detailed insights, and proposed actions for improving open funding metadata. Both documents are the result of discussions held during the Community Round Table on Funding Metadata, co-organized with Crossref in October 2025. The roundtable brought together funders, publishers, tech providers, and other stakeholders to discuss how to move from barriers to solutions, and improve open funding metadata practices across systems and workflows.

“The roundtable session showed real consensus among publishers, funders and system providers on the importance of more and better open funding metadata. Now we must decisively move from analysis to action. This Call to Action provides the tools to do so - for both individual organisations and the community as a whole.”
Hans de Jonge, Director Open Science NL and Co-Coordinator of the Working Group of Funding Metadata

Promotional graphic from the Barcelona Declaration Working Group on Funding Metadata announcing two new documents on open funding metadata. The image features the title ‘Open Funding Information – a Call to Action’ alongside a visual mockup of the publication cover. Supporting text explains that the documents identify key barriers and propose concrete actions for publishers, funders, institutions/libraries, and infrastructures. The design uses the Barcelona Declaration’s purple and yellow branding on a light beige background with abstract network graphics.


Key challenges

The Call to Action identifies three major challenges currently limiting the quality and flow of funding metadata: lack of standardization, disconnected systems, and issues related to costs, culture, and capacity. It also outlines concrete actions for funders, publishers, infrastructure providers, institutions, and libraries to help strengthen the capture, sharing, and interoperability of funding information.

“Developing a more unified, sustainable methodology to capture and preserve funding information is a clear action we can take as publishers to facilitate greater openness and transparency. At PLOS, we welcome the Barcelona Declaration’s Call To Action and are committed to collaborating to establish a standardized, widely adoptable framework for the collection and maintenance of this funding metadata.”
Niamh O’Connor, Chief Publishing Officer, PLOS

“Shared standards and collaboration among all stakeholders, as set out in this Call to Action, will make the work of publishers, from submission through editorial and production, both easier to implement and much more consistent. In an AI world, doing this now matters more than ever because open funding metadata speaks directly to the provenance, integrity, and trustworthiness of the scholarly record.”
Catriona Mccallum, Director of the Future of Scholarly Research, Wiley

Both documents highlight the crucial role of persistent identifiers such as Grant DOIs and ROR IDs, the need for better interoperability between publisher systems, and the importance of reducing administrative burden on researchers.

“Crossref is committed to supporting our members and the community in depositing rich metadata, advancing shared standards and making funding metadata, including Crossref grant DOIs, easier to adopt across the scholarly ecosystem. The recommendations in this call to action reflect a strong shared desire to strengthen interoperability and coordination and we are committed to play our role alongside the rest of the community.”
Kora Korzec, Director of Community, Crossref


Concrete actions

The documents are intended as a shared reference point for organizations that want to take concrete actions. Under the Barcelona Declaration, the Working Group on Funding Metadata will explore how to support collaborative activities and track progress. As the Call to Action notes, meaningful progress does not need to wait for perfect coordination: - many of the necessary actions can begin now.


Explore the documents