Open research infrastructure works best when the underlying metadata is open too. Research funding is one important area where that openness still lags. Over the past year, we’ve been working directly with funders around the world to help make funding information a first-class part of the open scholarly graph (see more on that here: https://blog.openalex.org/funding-metadata-in-openalex). Along the way, we have been hearing from funders of all shapes and sizes that they want practical advice: for those that are ready to make their metadata more open, what exactly should they share, and where should they start? This post is our attempt to answer those questions in a concrete and incremental way.
Why this matters
When funding data is openly available, it can be linked to the rest of the scholarly ecosystem: research outputs (papers, datasets, software), institutions, researchers, topics, and citations. This makes it much easier to understand what research was supported, by whom, and with what impact as well as where funding is flowing (and not flowing).
OpenAlex represents connections between funding and research either by funders → grants → outputs or directly from funders → outputs when information on specific grants is not available or linkable.
Two ways to connect funding to research
1) Funder identity + acknowledgement matching (no grant database required)
Even if you don’t share grant-by-grant information, funded research can often be identified when we scan acknowledgements sections of research outputs for funder mentions and linking those mentions to a known funder.
What this enables
- Tracking of research outputs and their impacts by funder
- Topic and institutional views based on acknowledged support
- Better tracking despite acronyms, translations, and name changes
What we need for this to be effective
- A public record of the funders’ operating names (e.g., meaningful name variants and historical names). ROR.org has most funders already– adding records and curating is free and easy and makes it easier to trace the different ways researchers might refer to your funding.
- Providing guidance to researchers on how to represent your organization in publications when they declare funding
If you share nothing else, curating your ROR record and name variants is still high value.
2) Grant/Award records (richer linkages + funding-flow intelligence)
If you also share information about your grants/awards, you can make connections to specific grants (not just the funder name) and unlock deeper intelligence about research funding flows.
What this enables
- Which funders fund topic X (and how that changes over time)
- Which institutions receive funding from funder Y
- Where there may be “underfunded” topics
- Linking specific grants/programs → outputs → citations/impact
- Funding-flow analytics (when amounts/currencies/dates are shared)
“Share what you can” tiers (minimum → recommended → optional)
Funders vary widely (public accountability vs. privacy, administrative constraints, donor preferences). It’s okay to publish only a subset of fields. You can start small and expand over time.
Tier 0: No grant records, but you want to track funded research
Do this
- Ensure you have a ROR record and keep it updated (especially name variants).
Tier 1: Minimum viable grant data (high value, low sensitivity)
Share these fields for each grant/award (even without funding amounts):
- Grant ID (your internal identifier)
- Grant title
- Short description/abstract
- Start year/date (and end year/date if possible)
Enables: topic discovery, portfolio timelines, and better matching to outputs—without publishing sensitive financial info.
Tier 2: Strong linkage + attribution (recommended for most funders)
Add:
- Awarded institutions
- Investigators (PI or individual awardee; co-investigators optional)
- Program/scheme/call name
- Funding type (grant/fellowship/infrastructure/etc.)
- Reported outputs linked to grants (optional): if you collect publication/output lists from grantee reporting (papers, datasets, software, preprints, etc.), consider sharing those as explicit grant → output links. This captures links that may not appear in acknowledgement sections and reuses effort researchers already invested in reporting.
Enables: “who/where did we fund,” collaboration networks, and more reliable grant-to-output linking.
Tier 3: Funding-flow intelligence (optional; may be sensitive)
Add:
- Amount + currency
Enables: investment totals by topic, cross-funder comparisons, and richer budget analytics.
What if you don’t want to share certain fields?
That’s okay! It’s better to share some information than to not share any because you don’t want to share specific fields. Here’s what you gain/lose:
- No amounts/currency: you lose “how much was invested” analytics, but still get strong portfolio discovery and topic/institution linkages via titles/descriptions/dates/institutions.
- No investigator identities: you lose person-level linking, but institutional and topical linking can remain strong.
Special case: Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) and fund administrators
Sometimes a fund administrator or DAF sponsor has stricter disclosure rules than the underlying funder’s preferences. In these cases, funders and administrators can collaborate on a field-sharing policy that protects sensitive info while still enabling research tracking.
Practical approach
- Separate donor identity constraints from research grant data
- Share Tier 1–2 fields first (title, description, years, institutions)
- If amounts are sensitive: omit them
- Use a simple workflow: funder approves which fields are public; administrator publishes and maintains the feed
A simple “how to start” plan
- Confirm identity: ensure your funder organization has a curated ROR record (names/aliases).
- Pick a tier: Tier 0 if you can’t publish grants; Tier 1 if you can publish minimal records.
- Publish in a sustainable format: website, database, bulk download, or API—getting data out there is more important than the specific format
- Iterate: add fields over time as policy and capacity allow.
Thank you to the many funders who have already worked with us to help make research funding data more open and more useful. Building a comprehensive, connected, and open view of research funding will take collaboration from funders of all kinds, and we’re excited to keep learning alongside the community. If your organization is thinking about sharing its metadata, we’d be glad to talk—please reach out to kyle@openalex.org