Canadians will have free online access to research funded by NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR – The Honourable Ed Holder, Minister of State (Science and Technology)
In case you missed it, the newly harmonized Tri-Agency Open Access Policy arrived on February 27, 2015. The policy consists of Canada’s three federal granting agencies — 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). This policy applies to all peer-reviewed articles funded by Tri-Council grants awarded after May 1, 2015.
It aims to ‘maximiz[e] the impact of publicly-funded research for Canadians while increase[ing] access to the results of publicly-funded research’. The result? It will “spur scientific discovery, enable better international collaboration and coordination of research, enhance the engagement of society and support the economy”.
1. What are the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications requirements?
It essentially “requires that peer-reviewed journal publications resulting from Tri-Agency (NSERC, SSHRC or CIHR) grants be freely accessible online within 12 months of publication”.
2. What does it mean for grant recipients and their compliance with the policy?
For UBC researchers, cIRcle is UBC’s Digital Repository (currently ranked number 1 in Canada) whereby final peer-reviewed, full-text manuscripts and other scholarly materials can be archived “immediately upon publication, even if [an] article is freely available through the journal’s website”.
3. Where can grant recipients find Open Access (OA) resources including OA journals in their discipline? How can they determine which publishers will allow them to retain copyright and/or allow them to archive journal publications in accordance with funding agency policies?
UBC researchers can do so via SHERA/RoMEO (Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving), the Directory of Open Access Journals, the open.ubc.ca site, and contact their liaison librarian at UBC Library.
Above partial text excerpts are courtesy of the Government of Canada site