This month, a quiet yet momentous event occurred in DataCite infrastructure: the registration of our 100 millionth DOI.
100 million is a huge number. And it says a lot about global adoption of DataCite and the scale of our community and infrastructure.
But the bigger story behind this exciting headline is about what this number represents. So we are marking the milestone with a few reflections about its broader significance:
1. DataCite is essential infrastructure for the global research community
100 million DOIs are a signal of how what started in 2009 as a focused initiative to make research citable has grown into a cornerstone of global infrastructure for open research.
Since its founding nearly 16 years ago, DataCite has seen sustained growth in DOI registration year on year. In 2025 alone, over 28 million new DOIs have been registered so far.
The 100 million DOIs in DataCite represent the full spectrum of research organization activities around the globe, encompassing datasets and software, preprints and dissertations, physical objects and instruments, research data management practices and research projects, and grants and awards.
DataCite’s vibrant community—1,667+ member organizations from 60+ countries spanning academic institutions, national research infrastructures, government agencies, publishers, consortia, and service providers—sustains a network of nearly 3,900 repositories where research is curated and connected to drive discovery, innovation, and impact.
The 100 million DOI milestone is also a reflection of DataCite’s robust and resilient infrastructure, which has scaled over the years to meet rising demand for DOI registrations and retrieval and to support increased complexity through metadata connections in DataCite’s PID graph. Platforms and services worldwide rely on DataCite APIs and data stores to build integrations, optimize analyses and reporting, and enrich indexes and aggregations.
2. As research evolves, so does DataCite
100 million DOIs reveal the ways in which DataCite’s infrastructure and community have adapted and innovated over the years to address new use cases, incorporate new technologies, and shape best practices as the research landscape continues to evolve.
Through membership growth across institutions and regions, metadata schema upgrades to identify new resource types and provide new ways of describing and connecting research activities, and the refinement of tools and service offerings that support metadata integrations, insights, and retrieval, we continue to open our doors and broaden our boundaries to serve as a trusted home and partner for the global research community.
3. Numbers mean nothing without quality metadata
100 million is just a number. And what we do at DataCite is about more than just registering a DOI. DataCite member organizations register DOIs to make their research outputs and activities more FAIR and open so they can be discovered and cited. DataCite users worldwide rely on our metadata store and related services to find and integrate key information and insights about research.
It doesn’t matter how many DOIs are in DataCite if these DOIs don’t have high-quality usable metadata that makes it possible for them to be found and used by humans and machines. This is why metadata quality and usability are key to all of our strategic and day-to-day efforts, from maintaining the DataCite Metadata Schema to providing tools and guidance to exploring new ways of improving and enriching metadata through community collaborations.
Beyond 100 million
Our achievements are not only measured in numbers but also in the impact we help create: more accessible research, greater reproducibility, and a more open, interconnected research landscape.
We appreciate and acknowledge all of the community’s efforts in making this milestone happen, and we look forward to more growth and collaboration as we continue to shape our journey together.
Maria Gould
