Draft, Revised Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications

Preamble

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") promote and support research, research training, knowledge mobilization and innovation within Canada.

As publicly funded organizations, the Agencies have a fundamental interest in contributing to societal advancement by promoting the availability of findings resulting from publicly funded research to the widest possible audience and at the earliest possible opportunity. Open access (OA) to peer-reviewed research articles enables readers in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, as well as the general public, to use and build upon these findings, as one important way to maximize the impact of research investments.

While beyond the scope of this policy, the Agencies acknowledge the value of other forms of scholarly communication (e.g. monographs, book chapters, blogs, podcasts, infographics, etc.). An open access policy to these other scholarly outputs would require a very distinct set of considerations. As a result, the current policy has in scope only peer-reviewed research articles.

The Agencies also recognize the importance of research by and with Indigenous communities being shared in ways that are culturally relevant, in Indigenous or local languages, and in formats that are useful and practical to these communities (e.g. conversations, community presentations, workshops, and other ways of sharing as defined by Indigenous peoples and communities).

Open access publishing is one practice within the broader umbrella of Open Science. The revised Tri-Agency OA Policy on Publications (2025) aligns with Canada's Chief Science Advisor's Roadmap for Open Science, the G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Communiqué (May 12-14, 2023) and with international best practices such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. In addition, the Agencies affirm their commitment to other initiatives beyond open science such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) which aim to build an equitable and responsible research ecosystem.

The following principles guide the Agencies in their approach to promoting OA to research publications:

• Transparency and Accountability – publicly funded research results should be freely accessible for the benefit of Canadians.
• Knowledge Mobilization – publicly funded research results should be effectively disseminated to potential users of this information to maximize impact.
• Academic Freedom - researchers have the right to publish and communicate the results of their research using the avenue of their choice.
• Research Integrity – open access to research results must continue to support the research community’s high standards of peer review in scientific and scholarly publishing, responsible research assessment, and responsible conduct of research.
• Policy Harmonization – the Agencies aim to align their activities and policies with other Canadian and international research funding agencies to promote recognized research best practices and standards.

Policy Objective

The objective of this policy is to ensure that all agency-funded, peer-reviewed research articles are immediately and freely available online to the research community, readers in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, and the general public.

All Canadian researchers, regardless of funding support, are encouraged to abide by this policy to further advance the broad dissemination and open exchange of research results.

Policy Scope

This policy applies to all agency-funded, peer-reviewed research articles published by agency-funded grantees and chairholders, regardless of whether the publication featuring agency-funded research also features research supported by other funders.

Student and postdoctoral awards and fellowships are not included under this policy; nevertheless, they are encouraged to comply via no-cost routes where possible.

Policy Requirements

Agency grantees and chairholders must acknowledge Agency contributions in all research outputs, including but not limited to peer-reviewed research articles, that were funded, in whole or in part, by the Agency, quoting the funder name and funding reference number (e.g., FRN, Application ID). Further details describing funder acknowledgement requirements will be provided in the final Policy.

Agency grantees and chairholder award recipients must deposit their research article in a Canadian institutional repository at the time of publication, even where the article is freely available on the publisher website. The version deposited may be either the version of record (VoR) or author-accepted manuscript (AAM) and must be deposited under an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent).

The Agencies have implemented a rights retention strategy to facilitate compliance with this policy at no additional cost to the researcher. By accepting the Terms and Conditions of their grant or award, grantees and chairholders must retain rights over the dissemination of any peer-reviewed research article arising from agency-funded research. Researchers are asked to inform the publisher and/or journal of their obligations and rights under the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications when submitting their article for publication. Instructions and a template letter will be provided, linked to the final Policy.

In cases where authors are prohibited by the journal and/or publisher from depositing the VoR or AAM in a repository at the time of publication, preprints deposited under an open license will be accepted as compliant with this policy. Preprints should be marked as “unrefereed version”.

Implementation Date

This policy applies to all grants and chairholder awards awarded on or after January 1, 2026. While not required, individuals who received grants and chairholder awards prior to January 1, 2026, are encouraged to adhere to the requirements of this policy. The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2015) will remain in effect until December 31, 2025.

Glossary of Terms

• Author-Accepted Manuscript (AAM): The final peer-reviewed version of a research manuscript that has been accepted for publication (e.g. the .doc version).
• Author Rights Retention: The authors retain sufficient property rights to their manuscripts so that they can archive a copy of their manuscript.
• Mandatory Deposit: A contractual obligation with a funder or an institution that mandates that authors deposit a copy of their manuscripts in a repository.
• Open License: An open license allows a manuscript to be used and shared freely. Different types of open licenses, from more to less restrictive, exist.
• Preprint: A version of a research manuscript that is deposited into a secure, persistent, and freely available online archive (i.e. repositories or preprint servers) before it has been peer-reviewed.
• Repository: A digital archive that centralizes, preserves, and provides access to research outputs, generally under an open license.
• Version of Record (VoR): The final peer-reviewed version of the research manuscript that has been edited, typeset, and published in a journal.