Europe PMC, a database of life science research literature, incorporates the first open, global grant IDs into its workflows. In a collaborative effort between Crossref, Wellcome (one of the Europe PMC funders), and Europe PMC, the first global grant IDs have been registered for Wellcome grants. Wellcome recently joined Crossref through a new type of membership developed specifically for this purpose. Europe PMC registers global grant IDs for Wellcome-funded awards with Crossref on behalf of the funding agency, and provides the necessary metadata based on the information in its grant database. The grant IDs resolve to the corresponding grant record on the Europe PMC website. The aim of this development is to make it easier to unambiguously and effectively track the impact of research funding, ensure transparency of the funding information and simplify linking to research outputs, such as research publications.