KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A review of the open access policy for publications is underway in Canada, aiming to ensure that all Tri-Agency–funded publications are freely available upon publication.
• Secondary publishing rights could play a crucial role in ensuring public access to academic research.

Canada’s federal research granting agencies have announced a review of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, aiming to fully embrace open access by 2025, Brianne Selman and Mark Swartz report for The Conversation UK. This planned update to the Copyright Act would require that agency-funded journal articles are made freely available upon publication, without the current 12-month embargo period.

Immediate open access could be achieved by adopting secondary publishing rights. This would enable researchers to share their findings on institutional repositories, personal websites, or other platforms, regardless of institutional affiliations, subscription fees, or the payment of article processing charges of open access journals.

Immediate open access could be achieved by adopting secondary publishing rights. This would enable researchers to share their findings on institutional repositories, personal websites, or other platforms, regardless of institutional affiliations, subscription fees, or the payment of article processing charges of open access journals.

cOAlition S, a group of national research funding organisations, has already agreed to ensure that all publications resulting from their research grants are made fully open access at the time of publication. This policy is known as Plan S, which outlines 10 key principles for open access. The first of these principles is that “authors or their institutions retain copyright to their publications”.

In the interconnected world of research, collaboration is key. The move to open access will encourage collaboration by empowering researchers to share their work openly, ensuring a wider reach globally, and promoting the free flow of knowledge. This will foster innovation and accelerate the pace of discovery. As funding agencies around the world consider a similar approach, the academic landscape is poised for a revolution.

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