13 March 2026
eLife has announced funding from Wellcome which will support a new initiative, called eLife Pathways, in building an open and collaborative ecosystem for alternative approaches to scholarly communication.
A founding funder and long-term supporter of eLife, Wellcome has awarded the non-profit a grant of £2.4m, including cover for indirect costs, for the next three years. This significant new investment affirms eLife’s success to date in building open-source publishing technologies and will help the organisation extend them to the wider community. Another private donor has also pledged funding to eLife which will contribute towards matching the Wellcome grant.
Damian Pattinson, eLife Executive Director, says: “These investments represent a strong endorsement of the role eLife Pathways will play in transforming research communication. We have always invested in open-source infrastructure to support new publishing models, and this funding allows us to expand our offering in this area. There are many communities around the world keen to adopt new ways of sharing research so it is exciting to be able to provide solutions that meet their needs.”
Despite calls for more openness in research communication, alternatives to traditional journals and publishing models remain scarce, stifling efforts to reform the system. A significant part of this problem is the lack of coordination among scholarly open-source technology providers, which prevents the development of robust, foundational infrastructure that benefits the community.
To address this challenge, the new eLife Pathways initiative will help build an open publishing ecosystem for all. This work will cover three goals: to enhance eLife’s existing technology so that it serves the community; to co-develop an open-source tool that will have significant community impact; and to provide technology that supports critical community projects, ensuring their adoption and contribution to the ecosystem.
Representing the first collaboration in this project, eLife Pathways’ second goal will be delivered in partnership with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). The organisations will develop a free tool so that any open-access journal can produce high-quality JATS XML – the industry standard for structuring and sharing research articles. As many journals, including a large proportion in the Global South, are unable to meet JATS XML standards due to the lack of simple and affordable tools, they face challenges in being indexed and made discoverable to readers. eLife Pathways therefore aims to break down this barrier to equity in publishing.
Paul Shannon, eLife Head of Technology and Innovation, says: “eLife Pathways will build on work that is currently supported by grants from COAR Notify and the NLnet Foundation, which together show the open science community’s belief in what we’re doing. Through our new and existing collaborations, we look forward to creating a world where innovation thrives, and where research is assessed responsibly and shared equitably.”
Kamran Naim, incoming Chair of eLife’s Board of Directors, adds: “Transforming research communication requires infrastructure that communities everywhere can rely on. Through eLife Pathways, we are investing in open, interoperable technologies that lower technical barriers and enable journals worldwide – particularly in under-resourced regions – to participate fully in a more equitable and connected research ecosystem. We’re grateful to Wellcome for recognising the importance of strengthening these foundations for the wider scholarly community.”
In addition to its technology efforts, eLife is committed to using the publish-review-curate (PRC) model to make peer review and publishing better for science. This approach – which combines the speed and openness of preprints with the scrutiny offered by peer review – emphasises the scientific content of individual articles rather than the name or Impact Factor of the journal they are published in. The organisation hopes that many others will adopt a flavour of the PRC model themselves and become part of the open ecosystem it seeks to build.
Timothy Behrens, eLife Editor-in-Chief, says: “eLife plays an important role in developing the infrastructure to support alternative approaches to research publishing and review. The new investments show that bringing this infrastructure to the community at large remains a significant but critical challenge – one that we’re in an even stronger position now to help overcome.”