Category Archives: oa.sshrc

Catching up on open access

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The days of the traditional, subscription-based scholarly journal seem to be numbered. Around the world, research funders are adopting ever-more expansive policies requiring the researchers they fund to make the results of their work freely accessible to the public. Canada, once a leader in this area, risks falling behind its peers unless it moves to keep pace with the latest developments.

Canada’s three federal research-funding agencies – the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) – adopted a joint open access policy in 2015. The policy requires grant recipients to ensure that any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from Tri-Agency funding are made publicly available to read for free within 12 months of publishing. Researchers may opt to make their published research accessible either through an online repository (essentially a free digital archive hosted by an institution or an organization) or by publishing in a journal that offers content without a direct cost to readers. But the landscape of scholarly publishing has evolved significantly in the eight years since the Tri-Agency decision, and the open science movement has gained steam. Now, many in the scientific community say Canada’s open access policies are due for a rewrite.

Open and Inclusive Access to Research

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“Open and Inclusive Access to Research is a four day virtual symposium, organised by Gimena Del Rio Riande, Daniel Paul O’Donnell, and Wouter Schallier. Primary funding was provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), with addition financial and in-kind support provided by Eclac, Force11, and the Sloan Foundation through the Reimagining Educational Practices for Open (REPO) project. The coapplicants and collaborators on the proposal were Gimena Del Rio Riande, CONICET; Juan Pablo Alperin, Simon Fraser University; Wouter Schallier, ECLAC; and Tanja Niemann, Université de Montréal.

The goal of this workshop is to bring experts and early career research professionals from Canada and Latin America together in a bilingual workshop environment that will enable them to exchange knowledge and expertise about Open Research Practices in a strategic yet very hands-on manner, with panels and prominent speakers from both continents. Researchers and policy makers in both Canada and Latin America have played leading roles internationally in the area of Open and Inclusive access to research, and particularly in Open Access, Open Data, and Open Science and Scholarship as a means to achieve this. The goal of this workshop is to bring those experts and early career researchers together to discuss areas of convergence and difference in a more systematic way….”

Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications – Science.gc.ca

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“The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (“the Agencies”) are federal granting agencies that promote and support research, research training and innovation within Canada. As publicly funded organizations, the Agencies have a fundamental interest in promoting the availability of findings that result from the research they fund, including research publications and data, to the widest possible audience, and at the earliest possible opportunity….

Grant recipients are required to ensure that any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from Agency-supported research are freely accessible within 12 months of publication. Recipients can do this through one of the following routes:

  1. Online Repositories
    Grant recipients can deposit their final, peer-reviewed manuscript into an institutional or disciplinary repository that will make the manuscript freely accessible within 12 months of publication. It is the responsibility of the grant recipient to determine which publishers allow authors to retain copyright and/or allow authors to archive journal publications in accordance with funding agency policies.
  2. Journals
    Grant recipients can publish in a journal that offers immediate open access or that offers open access on its website within 12 months. Some journals require authors to pay article processing charges (APCs) to make manuscripts freely available upon publication. The cost of publishing in open access journals  is an eligible expense under the Use of Grant Funds. 

These routes to open access are not mutually exclusive….”