OSA System Tracks Government-Funded Research

A new service that enables easy reporting of funding sources for scholarly research articles has been launched by The Optical Society (OSA).

The FundRef service from CrossRef enables authors to specify the funding agency of their research and allows agencies to track adherence to their policies. Publishers are also able to analyze the sources of funding for their published content.

This service was implemented in response to stakeholders needing access to this data. Another factor was participation in CHORUS, a large group of scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publishers working together to provide federal agencies with a cost-free solution to comply with the US Office of Science & Technology Policy open-access guidelines issued earlier this year.

“OSA is pleased to be among the first STM publishers that have adopted FundRef into their publishing platform,” said Elizabeth Nolan, OSA deputy executive director and chief publishing officer. “This tool is a valuable resource for authors, funding agencies and research institutions worldwide as it will enable straightforward reporting of government-funded research at a highly detailed level and in a standardized way. Additionally, as an integral part of the CHORUS solution, FundRef shifts the responsibility of providing public access to the publishers rather than US federal agencies — freeing up more federal dollars for research funding.”

The registry includes 4000 standardized funder names as well as tools for depositing and sharing funding information. Authors are able to select the corresponding capital agency and provide grant numbers when submitting their papers to OSA journals. Once published, the paper’s funding information is indexed into the FundRef system and becomes searchable through CrossRef.

For more information, visit: www.crossref.org/fundref or www.osa.org