As 2024 comes to a close, we reflect on a year marked by milestones, progress, and the ever-deepening collaboration with our global community. This year, we celebrated 15 years of DataCite, a journey built on the collective dedication of members, partners, and stakeholders who share our vision of a connected and equitable research ecosystem.

A key challenge for researchers is keeping track of project activities across the research lifecycle. Unlike a grant, which a researcher receives, a project is something that a researcher does. Project information is dynamic; what is planned is not necessarily what is delivered, while project contributors and organizations may change over time.

In the dynamic landscape of organizational growth and innovation, progress isn’t just about moving forward—it’s about navigating through our distinct strategic pillars that uphold the foundation of our journey at DataCite. As we continue on our reflective journey through our achievements and aspirations, let’s review the progress made across each pillar.

The journey of a year is like a tapestry, woven with threads of growth, innovation, and community. As we bid farewell to 2023, join us in unraveling some important reflections and accomplishments. Growing Together in Community Our community is experiencing robust growth, marked by growth in member repositories and a remarkable increase in DOI registrations.

As an open infrastructure organization committed to advancing knowledge, there are always many actions you can take. The key is to decide which initiatives and collaborations are of particular relevance at a given time. Based on our mission and vision, DataCite actively engages in a variety of initiatives, collaborating with different community stakeholders to advance open science and knowledge sharing.

STM, DataCite, and Crossref are pleased to announce an updated joint statement on research data. In 2012, DataCite and STM drafted an initial joint statement on the linkability and citability of research data.

In the evolving landscape of open scholarly infrastructure, DataCite is more than an organization; it’s a thriving community of dedicated stakeholders around the globe. Together we have embarked on a journey to redefine the way we interact with research outputs and resources. With our updated tagline, “Connecting Research, Advancing Knowledge,” DataCite is setting a transformative course for the research community.

Although persistence is essential to DataCite, it was time for an update. That is why we are delighted to officially announce the relaunch of our website with a new layout and design, and with it some revisions and enhancements to our messaging. Let’s go through all the updates so that you have an overview of the most important changes.

Make Data Count has been at the forefront of addressing the critical need to develop open data metrics to enable the evaluation of data usage. The Director of Make Data Count, Iratxe Puebla shares a recap of the recent Make Data Count Summit, which brought together representatives across research and government to explore next steps toward responsible data metrics.

DataCite is thrilled to launch the Global Access Fund (GAF), established to enable organizations worldwide to make their research outputs discoverable. It will provide financial support for both outreach activities and infrastructure development to enable organizations in regions and communities currently underrepresented in the global open science infrastructure landscape to benefit from DataCite infrastructure services.