Crossref at 25: a short film on a quarter-century of open infrastructure

January 2025

Crossref at 25

Crossref was incorporated on 19 January 2000 by a small group of publishers who agreed that persistent links between scholarly works were too important to leave to any one of them alone. Twenty-five years on, this short film looks back at what that founding decision made possible β€” and forward to the next quarter-century of open infrastructure.

Watch the film

Crossref at 25 β€” a short film marking the organisation's 25th anniversary, 19 January 2025

What the film covers

  • The founding moment β€” why eight publishers came together in 2000 to register the first Crossref DOIs and run a shared linking infrastructure
  • A growing network β€” how membership expanded from those eight founders to over 25,000 organisations in 167 countries, across every type of scholarly publisher
  • From DOIs to the Research Nexus β€” how the work has grown from persistent links to a connected graph of works, people, organisations, funders, and outputs
  • POSI in practice β€” what it means to run not-for-profit, community-governed infrastructure for the long term
  • The next 25 years β€” what the community is building together: richer metadata, broader participation, and a more equitable scholarly record

Anniversary context

EventDate
Crossref incorporated19 January 2000
First DOIs registered2000
10th anniversary2010
25th anniversary2025
Members today25,000+ across 167 countries

For the Crossref 10 years retrospective publication (2010, English and Japanese), see the parallel anniversary booklet from the 10-year mark.

Authors

  • Crossref

Watch

Watch on Canva
Format
Video
Published
19 January 2025

Page maintainer: Crossref
Last updated: 2025-January-19