As we finish celebrating our 25th anniversary, we can look back on a truly transformational year, defined by the successful delivery of several long-planned, foundational projects—as well as updates to our teams, services, and fees—that position Crossref for success over the next quarter century as essential open scholarly infrastructure. In our update at the end of 2024, we highlighted that we had restructured our leadership team and paused some projects. The changes made in 2024 positioned us for a year of getting things done in 2025. We launched cross-functional programs, modernised our systems, strengthened connections with our growing global community, and streamlined a bunch of technical and business operations while continuing to grow our staff, members, content, relationships, and community connections.
Crossref turned twenty-five this year, and our 2025 Annual Meeting became more than a celebration—it was a shared moment to reflect on how far open scholarly infrastructure has come and where we, as a community, are heading next.
Over two days in October, hundreds of participants joined online and in local satellite meetings in Madrid, Nairobi, Medan, Bogotá, Washington D.C., and London––a reminder that our community spans the globe. The meetings offered updates, community highlights, and a look at what’s ahead for our shared metadata network––including plans to connect funders, platforms, and AI tools across the global research ecosystem.
In my latest conversations with research funders, I talked with Hannah Hope, Open Research Lead at Wellcome, and Melissa Harrison, Team Leader of Literature Services at Europe PMC. Wellcome and Europe PMC are working together to realise the potential of funding metadata and the Crossref Grant Linking System for, among other things, programmatic grantee reporting. In this blog, we explore how this partnership works and how the Crossref Grant Linking System is supporting Wellcome in realising their Open Science vision.
In January 2026, our new annual membership fee tier takes effect. The new tier is US$200 for member organisations that operate on publishing revenue or expenses (whichever is higher) of up to US$1,000 annually. We announced the Board’s decision, making it possible in July, and––as you can infer from Amanda’s latest blog––this is the first such change to the annual membership fee tiers in close to 20 years!
The new fee tier resulted from the consultation process and fees review undertaken as part of the Resourcing Crossref for Future Sustainability program, carried out with the help of our Membership and Fees Committee (made up of representatives from member organisations and community partners). The program is ongoing, and the new fee tier, intended to make Crossref membership more accessible, is one of the first changes it helped us determine.
This section of our documentation is for Similarity Check account administrators who plan to access iThenticate 2.0 through their Manuscript Submission System (MTS).
Not sure if you’re using iThenticate v1 or iThenticate 2.0? More here.
Not sure whether you’re an account administrator? Find out here.
To set up your integration with your MTS, you need to create an API key by logging into iThenticate through the browser. You will then share this API key and the URL of your iThenticate 2.0 account with your MTS.
Please note: If you are sponsored by Biteca, please contact your sponsor who will help you with this.
Step One: Decide how many API scopes and API keys you need
Within iThenticate, you can set up different API Scopes, and within that, different API keys. Most members will just need one API Scope and one API key. However, some members may need more than one.
If you need to integrate with more than one Manuscript Tracking System (MTS), you will need a different API Scope for each MTS.
If you publish on behalf of societies or work with other organisations who want to keep their activities separate from each other, you will need a different API Scope and API key for each society.
If at some point in the future, you need to change your API key for an existing MTS integration, you must generate a new API key under the same scope that you originally used for this integration.
Step Two: Create your API Scope and API key(s)
Click on “Integrations” in the menu.
This will bring you to the Integrations section. Click on the “Generate API Scope” key.
You will then give your API Scope a name.
For example, this may be the name of a particular MTS, or of a particular society.
Under your new API Scope, you can then set up your first API key.
Once you add the key name, you will be able to click on the “Create and view” button. The system will then generate your key.
Step three: Add your API key into your Manuscript Tracking System (MTS)
In order to integrate your new iThenticate 2.0 account and your Manuscript Tracking system(s), your MTS will require from you:
At least one API key
Your unique iThenticate URL containing your Crossref membership number using the following format: https://crossref-xxx.turnitin.com. (For example, if your Crossref Membership number is 1234, your URL will be: https://crossref-1234.turnitin.com. If you are not sure what your Crossref Membership number is, please ask us.
Follow the instructions below for the relevant MTS:
OJS
Follow the instructions found on PKP’s website. You’ll need to ensure that you’re on OJS version 3.3, 3.4, or 3.5. For instructions on how to upgrade your OJS instance, please visit PKP’s documentation here or here, depending on which version you’re currently running.
Editorial Manager
Enter your iThenticate API key(s) and your iThenticate 2.0 account URL into the iThenticate configuration page in Editorial Manager. There are instructions available from Aries Systems here.
eJournal Press
Email your API key(s) and your iThenticate 2.0 account URL to support@ejpress.com and the team at eJournal Press will set up the integration for you.
ScholarOne
If you are already using iThenticate with ScholarOne and are upgrading from iThenticate v1 to iThenticate 2.0, please email your API key(s) and your iThenticate 2.0 account URL to s1help@clarivate.com, and the team at ScholarOne will make the change for you. Please put “Product Management” in the subject line of your email.
If you are a new subscriber to Similarity Check and you haven’t used iThenticate before, you don’t need to email the team at ScholarOne. Just enter your iThenticate API key(s) and your iThenticate 2.0 account URL into the iThenticate configuration page in ScholarOne.
Scholastica
The team at Scholastica will set up the integration for you. Give them your API key(s) and your iThenticate 2.0 account URL by filling out this form.
The team at Scholastica will also set up any exclusions for you, so in the form they’ll ask you which sort of content you want to exclude from displaying as a match.
Page maintainer: Kathleen Luschek Last updated: 2022-July-18
