Dear publishers,
Canada’s 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) (“the Agencies”)—have released a revised Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2026).
By accepting an agency grant or Chair award on or after January 1, 2027, authors agree to retain sufficient rights over all peer-reviewed research articles resulting from funded work such that they may be made immediately and freely available in a Canadian institutional repository or a trusted Canadian platform at the time of publication, under an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent).
We encourage you to adapt your policies and workflows to accommodate authors’ legal rights to share their accepted manuscripts as set out in the Terms and Conditions of their grant or Chair award. We ask that your agreements confirm authors’ rights to make a copy of their accepted manuscript freely available, without embargo, under an open license.
We request that you inform authors of any requirements related to the version of record at the time of submission, to ensure clarity and transparency; for example:
- The license that will be applied to the version of record of their article; and
- Publication fees that will be levied, if any, such as Article Processing Charges.
This request is in accord with Committee on Publishing Ethics’ (COPE) Principles of Transparency guidelines which call, for example, for clarity in copyright and licensing and information pertaining to any publishing fees which may be levied. Further, we have signed the Statement of Support for the Canadian Research Knowledge Network’s (CRKN) 2026 negotiation principles and strategy, which calls, for example, for the protection and respect of author’s rights and open access scholarship.
We encourage you to display the information regarding these issues:
- Prominently on your website;
- In your ‘information for authors’ documentation; and
- In your submission system at the start of the submission process.
Making your terms and conditions clear at the outset will enable authors to make an informed decision as to whether to proceed with their submission or not and help them plan for any associated costs.
We look forward to working with you to increase sustainable open access to research articles and to ensure the widest possible dissemination of Canadian publicly funded research.
Yours sincerely,
Alejandro Adem, President, NSERC
Normand Labrie, Interim President, SSHRC
Paul Hébert, President, CIHR