GEM on Crossref

The GEM program - Year Three and program expansion for 2026

Susan Collins — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As Crossref membership continues to grow, finding ways to help organisations participate is an important part of our mission. Although Crossref membership is open to all organisations that produce scholarly and professional materials, cost and technical challenges can be barriers to joining for many.

Our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program aims to provide greater membership equity and accessibility to organisations in the world’s least economically advantaged countries. Eligible members pay no membership or record registration fees. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country. Seeing its effectiveness in increasing participation in the research nexus from previously underrepresented regions, this year we are expanding the GEM program to include 18 new countries.

Overview of the first 3 years of GEM

The program began in January 2023 with 214 existing members. By the end of 2025, we had 628 organisations under the GEM program. Of these, 535 are independent members, and 89 members work through one of our sponsors. To date, GEM program members have contributed approximately 334,000 works to the Research Nexus.

Global equitable membership	2023	2024	2025
New members joining	129	127	151
Total member count	327	458	628

Total number of Crossref GEM members by country until the end of 2025:

GEM country – alphabetically	Total no. of members	GEM country – alphabetically	Total no. of members
Afghanistan	29	Malawi	2
Bangladesh	167	Maldives	4
Benin	6	Mali	4
Bhutan	6	Marshall Islands	0
Burkina Faso	7	Mauritania	1
Burundi	3	Micronesia	0
Cambodia	14	Mozambique	2
Central African Republic	1	Myanmar	3
Chad	0	Nepal	60
Comoros	1	Nicaragua	2
Congo, Democratic Republic	24	Niger	0
Côte d’Ivoire	3	Rwanda	9
Djibouti	0	Samoa	0
Eritrea	0	São Tomé and Principe	0
Ethiopia	17	Senegal	7
Gambia	0	Sierra Leone	2
Ghana	38	Solomon Islands	0
Guinea	0	Somalia	10
Guinea-Bissau	0	South Sudan	0
Guyana	3	Sri Lanka	31
Haiti	2	Sudan	14
Honduras	3	Tajikistan	8
Kiribati	0	Tanzania, United Republic of	28
Kosovo	9	Togo	1
Kyrgyz Republic	27	Tonga	0
Lao, People’s Democratic Rep.	5	Tuvalu	0
Lesotho	0	Uganda	23
Liberia	1	Vanuatu	0
Madagascar	5	Yemen	37
		Zambia	8

Membership Density in GEM Program Countries until the end of 2025

Program expansion in 2026

Starting on 1st of January 2026, we’re excited to invite organisations from Angola, Belize, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Dominica, Eswatini, Fiji, Grenada, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Timor Leste, and Uzbekistan to join Crossref and register their content and metadata with us without membership or record registration fees. There are 711 existing Crossref members based in these countries who are now eligible for the program, bringing the overall number of GEM members to 1339 across 77 countries (that’s close to 5% of all Crossref members).

In creating our eligibility list, we refer to existing sources. For the first three years of the program, our list was predominantly based on the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) classification. In 2026, we leveraged additional sources to curate our list, resulting in the inclusion of 18 new countries in the program. Following community feedback, we now refer to the IDA, the IDA Blend List, and the United Nations Least Developed Countries list. In our choices, we also keep abreast of the global situation and conversations about supporting equitability in scholarly publishing and in the future, we may consider other factors too.

We will review our lists and the eligibility criteria annually and note any changes on our website. Members whose country moves on or off the GEM Program will be notified of any upcoming fees (or the removal of fees) with adequate time to plan and budget accordingly. Although the GEM program reduces financial barriers, many small organisations may still need administrative, technical, and language support provided by our Sponsors, and we will continue working with suitable organisations to make participation in Crossref easier.

The GEM program - Year Two 2024

Susan Collins — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We began our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program to provide greater membership equitability and accessibility to organisations in the world’s least economically advantaged countries. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country; our list of countries is predominantly based on the International Development Association (IDA). Eligible members pay no membership or content registration fees. The list undergoes periodic reviews, as countries may be added or removed over time as economic situations change.

The program began in January 2023 with 214 existing members; and 131 more joined throughout the year. In 2024, we saw 127 organisations joining via the GEM program, bringing the total number of participants to 458. We welcomed our first-ever members from Sierra Leone and Honduras, as well as our first Sponsor in Bangladesh (Sponsors are organisations that work with us to provide administrative, billing, technical, and local language support to the members they work with).

Of 458 organisations participating in the GEM program, 380 are independent members, 77 are sponsored, and there is one sponsoring organisation. To date, these members have contributed over 279,000 works to the Research Nexus, our concept of a fully connected global scholarly ecosystem.

Though we have Sponsors based elsewhere, working with members who are in GEM countries (e.g. PKP), we will continue to consult with our ambassadors and other partners to identify potential new sponsors that are based in GEM countries.

Number of Crossref GEM members by country:

GEM Country (Alphabetically)	Total No. of Members
Afghanistan	17
Bangladesh	120
Benin	5
Bhutan	6
Burkina Faso	4
Burundi	2
Cambodia	8
Central African Republic	1
Congo, Democratic Republic	15
Ethiopia	13
Ghana	27
Guyana	2
Haiti	1
Honduras	1
Kosovo	8
Kyrgyz Republic	23
Lao, People’s Democratic Republic	2
Madagascar	4
Malawi	2

GEM Country (Alphabetically)	Total No. of Members
Maldives	3
Mali	3
Mauritania	1
Mozambique	2
Myanmar	1
Nepal	50
Nicaragua	2
Rwanda	7
Senegal	7
Sierra Leone	1
Somalia	9
Sri Lanka	14
Sudan	19
Tajikistan	4
Tanzania, United Republic of	21
Togo	1
Uganda	17
Yemen	30
Zambia	5

Number of Crossref members in GEM Program Countries

We are excited about our in-person event taking place in a few weeks in Accra, Ghana, as a direct result of the increasing participation and interest in Crossref from the region.

We can see a clear connection between outreach activities conducted by us and our Ambassadors and the increase in awareness and the number of members joining from related countries. These were Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda, and Tanzania in 2023, and Ghana, Zambia, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania in 2024.

From our Ambassadors’ activities in the GEM countries, some recurring questions emerged highlighting barriers to joining Crossref. It’s important to recognise that many institutions struggle with funding and technical expertise. It’s no surprise that they are often concerned with the maintenance of their membership over the long term. We emphasize that GEM is a sustained measure to accommodate knowledge-sharing organisations from the regions of financial strain. Whilst the program addresses the costs of membership and content registration, our Ambassadors can assist further, offering technical support with record registration, metadata best practices, and integrating Crossref services with existing systems, including Open Journal Systems (OJS); and discuss how registering metadata improves research visibility.

We are grateful to our Ambassadors for directly supporting the GEM program within their countries through webinars and presenting in person at conferences: Shaharima Parvin and MD Jahangir in Bangladesh, Richard Bruce Lamptey in Ghana, Niranjan Koirala in Nepal, Oumy Ndiaye in Senegal, Lasith Gunawardena in Sri Lanka, and Baraka Manjale Ngussa in Tanzania.

The GEM program - year one

Susan Collins — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In January 2023, we began our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program to provide greater membership equitability and accessibility to organisations located in the least economically advantaged countries in the world. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country; our list of countries is predominantly based on the International Development Association (IDA). Eligible members pay no membership or content registration fees.

The list undergoes periodic reviews, as countries may be added or removed over time as economic situations change. Sri Lanka was added to the GEM program in March 2023 as they were recategorised to the IDA classification by the World Bank.

When the program launched, we had 214 existing members eligible for the program who then were no longer charged for membership or content registration. Since the program began, we have welcomed an additional 131 new members into the program, including our first members from Cambodia and Togo.

Country	As of 1/1/2023 (start of GEM)	Additions in 2023 (end of first year of GEM)	Total
Afghanistan	6	4	10
Bangladesh	56	33	89
Benin	1	1	2
Bhutan	4	2	6
Burkina Faso	2	0	2
Burundi	1	0	1
Cambodia	0	2	2
Central African Republic	1	0	1
Congo, Democratic Republic	1	11	12
Ethiopia	4	6	10
Ghana	14	7	21
Guyana	1	1	2
Haiti	1	0	1
Kosovo	2	2	4
Kyrgyz Republic	22	3	25
Laos	1	0	1
Madagascar	1	1	2
Malawi	1	0	1
Maldives	1	0	1
Mali	2	0	2
Mauritania	1	0	1
Myanmar	1	0	1
Nepal	20	18	38
Nicaragua	1	0	1
Rwanda	4	1	5
Senegal	3	3	6
Somalia	2	2	4
Sri Lanka	13	5	18
Sudan	9	2	11
Tajikistan	5	1	6
Tanzania	9	7	16
Togo	0	1	1
Uganda	3	6	9
Yemen	16	12	28
Zambia	5	0	5

With help from our ambassadors based in GEM countries, we organised and co-hosted several webinars to introduce the program, along with an introduction to Crossref, and the benefits of including all kinds of research objects in the Research Nexus.

In April, our team, together with ambassador Binayak Raj Pandey, provided an overview of Crossref for members and organisations in Nepal.
Our team and ambassadors, Dr Md Jahangir Alam and Shaharima Parvin hosted two webinars in May for members and organisations in Bangladesh. The first webinar provided an introduction to Crossref, our services, and the GEM Program. The second webinar focused on the methods to register content and how to add and update metadata.
In September, ambassador Baraka Manjale Ngussa joined us for an introductory webinar aimed at organisations in Tanzania
In November, CARLIGH (the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana), Crossref, and EIFL co-hosted a webinar for librarians and journal editors in Ghana with a discussion on the GEM program and Crossref services.

In 2024, we will continue to collaborate with our ambassadors and other members of the community to offer more opportunities for organisations in GEM-eligible countries to learn about the program and the benefits of membership for content discovery.

The program was initially met with scepticism by some organisations in GEM-eligible countries, who wanted to be certain that it wasn’t a free trial, that there are no hidden fees, or that they would be required to pay later for other services. Others expressed concern that Crossref would introduce fees after a year or two. Though we were able to clarify these aspects of the program, we understand the concerns and are working to ensure we provide clarity and transparency about the program. Additionally, we will be conducting a complete review of our fees in 2024, and we will ensure that GEM-eligible members will have input.

Although the program offers relief from fees, many organisations require technical assistance and language support. The GEM program would benefit from an increase in local Sponsors to facilitate membership and provide support, particularly In countries with the highest growth, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Yemen, Kyrgyz Republic, and Ghana. Though we have Sponsors working with members who are in GEM countries (e.g. PKP), we do not yet have any Sponsors who are based in a GEM country.

We will be working with relevant like-minded organisations, such as PKP, DOAJ, INASP, OASPA, EIFL, and others, to help identify suitable candidates for new Sponsors in underserved regions and engage them proactively. Additionally, we will consult with our ambassadors in GEM countries to help identify potential Sponsors. We are beginning the year by making the most of the momentum created in African countries (Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania) and looking to develop new networks in other parts of the world in Q2-Q4 of this year.

Refocusing our Sponsors Program; a call for new Sponsors in specific countries

Susan Collins — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Some small organisations who want to register metadata for their research and participate in Crossref are not able to do so due to financial, technical, or language barriers. To attempt to reduce these barriers we have developed several programs to help facilitate membership. One of the most significant—and successful—has been our Sponsor program.

Sponsors are organisations that are generally not producing scholarly content themselves but work with or publish on behalf of groups of smaller organisations that wish to join Crossref but face barriers to do so independently. Sponsors work directly with Crossref in order to provide billing, technical, and, if applicable, language support to Members.

Because Sponsors are important partners in facilitating membership there is a high bar to meet to be accepted as a Sponsor. To ensure that an organisation can accurately represent Crossref and has the resources to be successful we created a set of criteria that must be met to be considered.

Our Sponsors program has grown considerably over the last decade and has now become the primary route to membership for emerging markets and small or academic-adjacent publishing operations.

The program began in 2012 with four Sponsors, based primarily in South Korea and Turkey, representing fewer than 100 members. In the next stage of development, the program covered Brazil, India, and Ukraine, and nearly 1300 members. At the end of 2022, the program had grown to over 100 sponsors from 45 countries representing over 11,000 of our members.

Though the program continues to expand, there are still regions where we lack Sponsors, while having an abundance in others. We are working with members, ambassadors, and the community to help identify organisations that may be a fit with the Sponsor program and based in those regions where coverage is lacking.

This January we announced our Global Equitable Membership (GEM) Program which offers relief from membership and content registration fees for members in the least economically-advantaged countries in the world. Eligibility for the program is based on a member’s country on our curated list.

Though the GEM program reduces financial barriers to becoming a member, many organisations still require technical assistance and local language support. Working with a Sponsor would help organisations overcome these burdens. However, there is little or no Sponsor coverage for organisations located in most GEM-eligible countries. That means that in places like Bangladesh, Nepal, and Senegal, where we’ve seen a lot of growth, more organisations could join us if a suitable local Sponsor could support them.

We have made the decision to pause accepting new Sponsors from regions where Sponsor numbers are already very high or not based in a GEM region. By doing so we can focus on growing the program in areas where there is the greatest need.

We are also going to focus on how best to support our current 100+ Sponsors and work with them to evaluate ways to improve the program. We will bolster the training and resources, outreach activities, and solicit feedback on additional ways we can help.

We would love to hear from organisations based in GEM countries who might consider becoming a Sponsor. But our invitation for Sponsors is not limited to the support for the GEM program. There are countries where the GEM program won’t apply, but where growth is high and no Sponsor is present. In particular, we seek support in the following countries where member numbers are growing but could be better supported.

Country/state	Region	No. Crossref members
Nigeria	Sub-Saharan Africa (Western)	99
Philippines	South-eastern Asia	81
Kenya	Sub-Saharan Africa (Eastern)	40
Egypt	Northern Africa	26
Sri Lanka	Southern Asia	13

If your organisation is based in one of these regions and supports or provides services to scholarly publishers in one of the above countries —please take a look at the criteria set out on our website and do get in touch to start the conversation if you think you can meet them. We’re excited to hear from you!