Notice: This policy applies to agency grants and Chair awards awarded on or after January 1, 2027. For grants awarded between May 1, 2015, and December 31, 2026, please refer to the 2015 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.
Preamble
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) ("the Agencies") promote and support research, research training, knowledge mobilization and innovation within Canada.
The Agencies have a fundamental interest in ensuring that the findings resulting from publicly funded research are available 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 results, and by doing so, help maximize the impact of research investments.
The Agencies recognize the importance of diamond OA, community-led publishing and open infrastructure in creating equitable, sustainable and collaborative national research ecosystems. The Agencies are committed to promoting the availability of research findings and encouraging researchers to disseminate their research findings in accessible and barrier-free formats.
This policy applies only to peer-reviewed research articles. While beyond the scope of the policy, the Agencies acknowledge the value of other forms of scholarly communication (for example, monographs, book chapters, blogs, podcasts, infographics, etc.). However, requiring open access to these other scholarly outputs would necessitate a very distinct set of considerations.
The Agencies recognize the importance of research in French and the mobilization of knowledge in the language that is relevant to the communities it serves. By encouraging researchers to make their work available in the official language(s) of their choice, the Agencies also invite researchers to pursue, where appropriate, publication and dissemination practices that enhance accessibility for relevant Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs), and strengthen the impact and reach of French-language publications and knowledge mobilization. Through an active, engaged and well-supported research community, the Agencies hope to position Canada as a global leader in diverse scientific content and scientific multilingualism.
The Agencies also recognize the importance of research by and with Indigenous rightsholders being shared in ways that are culturally relevant, in Indigenous or local languages, and in formats that are useful and practical to these communities (for example conversations, community presentations, workshops, and other ways of sharing as defined by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and communities).
Open access publishing is one practice within the broader umbrella of open scholarship. This policy 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 advancing open scholarship practices, in a manner that ensures research is as open as possible and as secure as necessary. These practices align with internationally recognized approaches that intersect other policy areas, including responsible research assessment initiatives such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).
The following principles guide the Agencies in their approach to promoting OA to research publications:
- Transparency and Accountability – for the benefit of Canadians, publicly funded research results intended for publication should be freely available and the use of public funding for publication should be as cost-effective as possible.
- Knowledge Mobilization – to maximize impact, publicly funded research results should be effectively disseminated to potential users of this information.
- 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 scholarly publishing, responsible research assessment, and responsible conduct of research.
- Research Security – the open sharing and exchange of research inputs, methods data and results should be maintained to the maximum extent, while appropriate mitigations should be applied to safeguard research that could have adverse ethical or national security implications.
- Policy Harmonization – the Agencies aim to align their activities and policies with other Canadian and international research funding agencies to promote recognized best practices and standards in research.
Research institutions have a significant role in supporting their researchers with an environment that enables and supports OA practices. The Agencies recognize that each institution has particular circumstances that might affect their OA infrastructure, resources and practices, including the institution’s size and capacity, geography, and other contextual factors.
Policy Objective
The objective of this policy is to improve access to the results of agency-funded research, and to increase the dissemination and exchange of research results.
Policy Scope
This policy applies to all peer-reviewed research articles resulting from work supported, in whole or in part, by the Agencies’ grants and Chair awards, including those administered by the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS).
This policy does not apply to student and postdoctoral awards and fellowships; nevertheless, students and postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to comply via no-cost routes where possible.
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 Requirements
For Institutions:
To support Policy implementation and enable OA practices more broadly, each postsecondary institution and research hospital eligible to administer CIHR, NSERC or SSHRC funds is required to develop and publicly share an institutional OA strategy.
The Agencies will provide guidance and supporting resources, including a template, to assist institutions in developing their open access strategies. Institutions will be required to publish their strategy online within two years of these resources being made available and notify the agencies when it has been completed.
Having the strategies publicly available will help the broader research community and the Agencies understand institutions’ current and planned OA capacity, challenges and needs, and will facilitate ongoing dialogue and collaboration on the advancement of OA in Canada.
For Agency Grantees and Chairholders:
- Acknowledge Agency contributions in the peer-reviewed research article, quoting the funder name and funding reference number (such as the FRN or Application Number) and any applicable persistent identifiers (PIDs);
- Retain sufficient rights and apply an open license, such as a Creative Commons (CC) license, to the Accepted Manuscript (AM) and/or Version of Record (VoR) used to comply with the Policy. The Agencies strongly encourage authors to use the least restrictive license (preferably, CC-BY), wherever possible;
- Inform the publisher of the author’s obligations and rights under the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2026) when submitting an article for publication; and
- Ensure the peer-reviewed research article is immediately and freely available in a Canadian institutional repository or made available through a trusted Canadian platform at the time of publication, even where the article is freely available on the publisher’s website. The version may be either the AM or the VoR. The article must be immediately available with no embargo period, under an open license.
In cases where the journal and/or publisher questions authors about them retaining rights over the content of their article and making the AM or VoR open access in a repository at the time of publication, authors should contact the agency that funded the research to determine the author’s options to comply with the Policy.
Publication-Related Data
Information about research data management requirements (including data retention, deposit and sharing) may be found in the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy.
Policy Effective Date
This Policy applies to all grants and Chairholder awards awarded on or after January 1, 2027.
The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2015) will remain in effect on all grants awarded between May 1, 2015 and December 31, 2026.
Monitoring and Compliance
By accepting agency funds, researchers accept the terms and conditions as set out in the Agencies’ policies, agreements, and guidelines.
The Agencies will monitor compliance with the Policy. In the event of an alleged breach of the Policy, the Agencies may take steps outlined in the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research or other actions deemed necessary to address the allegation. Failure to fulfill the requirements of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications may result in corrective actions that could negatively impact an individual’s eligibility for future funding.
Policy Review
The Agencies will monitor and review this policy as needed to address new evidence, evolving best practices and technological advances.
Further Information
Supporting information about the Policy can be found in the Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions.
Glossary of Terms
- Accepted Manuscript (AM): The article that has been accepted for publication in a journal.
- Accessible format: Accessible formats (sometimes referred to as “alternate formats”) are, for example, large print, recorded audio and electronic formats and other formats usable by persons with disabilities. Accessibility is a combination of aspects, physical or virtual, that influence a person’s ability to function within an environment and to access it with ease.
- Author Rights Retention: Rights retention is a publishing strategy that protects authors’ legal rights over their academic work, particularly the right to control how their research articles are shared, distributed, and reused. Rights retention enables authors to archive a copy of their manuscript.
- Author's Original (AO): The article that is considered by the author to be of sufficient quality to be submitted for formal peer review by a second party. The author accepts full responsibility for the article. The AO may have a version number or date stamp, and the content and layout are set out by the author. The AO stage applies before and during the peer review process, but prior to any alterations made as a direct result of peer review. An AO is also known as a preprint if deposited on a preprint server.
- Barrier-free: Designed or planned to give access to all persons, regardless of their disabilities. Barriers are anything – including anything physical, architectural, technological, or attitudinal; anything that is based on information or communication; or anything that is the result of a policy or a practice – that hinders the full and equal participation in society of persons with an impairment, including a physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication, or sensory impairment of a functional limitation.
- Diamond OA: a community-driven, non-commercial model of scholarly publishing that removes financial barriers for authors and readers. Under diamond OA, publications are freely available online, with neither subscription fees for readers nor article processing charges (APCs) for authors (that is a non-profit journal with no subscription or publishing fees).
- Institutional repository: A digital archive hosted by an institution (like a university) that centralizes, preserves, and provides access to research outputs, generally under an open license.
- 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. The most commonly used types of open licenses are Creative Commons (CC) licenses. CC licenses provide an easy way to manage the copyright terms that attach automatically to all creative material under copyright.
- Research article: a piece of writing, primarily intended for a scholarly research peer community, that is typically written in a formal, field-standard structure. It can be any version of the work shared in a periodical or online archive that is dedicated to the dissemination of new knowledge. Examples of articles would be preprints, accepted manuscripts destined for journal publication, publisher-branded journal papers, working papers, or lengthy review articles.
- Version of Record (VoR): A fixed article that has been made available by any organization that acts as a publisher by formally and exclusively declaring the article published.