Earlier today, the three largest funding agencies in Canada released a coordinated policy requiring researchers to provide access to articles resulting from their funded research. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) have issued “The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.” The full text of the policy can be found here: http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=415B5097-1
The Tri-Agency Policy builds on the CIHR’s policy, which has been in place since 2008, and is the culmination of the 2010 endorsement of Open Access principles by all three agencies.
The policy, which will go into effect on May 1, 2015, requires that all peer-reviewed journal articles funded in whole or in part by the Agencies must be made publicly available within 12 months of publication. The policy provides two options for compliance:
1. Researchers may deposit peer-reviewed full-text manuscripts into a disciplinary repository (such as Canadian PMC or arXiv) or into an appropriate institutional repository. The policy does not address reuse rights, other than to note that it is the responsibility of the grant recipient to determine which journal publishers allow authors to retain copyright and/or archive articles in accordance with the Agencies’ policy.
2. Researchers may also choose to publish their article directly in a journal that makes the article freely available under Open Access terms, or that makes articles available via Open Access within 12 months of publication. To support this option, the policy indicates that Article Processing Charges (APCs) will be treated as eligible grant expenses.
The policy underscores that the Agencies do not view these two options as mutually exclusive, and strongly encourages funded researchers to deposit a copy of final, peer-reviewed manuscripts into an accessible online repository immediately upon publication, even if the article is freely available via a journal’s website.
The Tri-Agency Open Access policy applies only to articles, and does not impose any new regulations on access to research data. CIHR’s current data requirements remain unchanged, while NSERC and SSHRC continue to explore options for data sharing.
For additional information, an FAQ document has provided by the Agencies here: http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=A30EBB24-1.
