Funding Agencies and Open Access

The following agencies support Open Access:

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR):
  According to their Policy on Access to Research Outputs:
  
  All grants awarded January 1, 2008 and onward require grant recipients to make every effort to ensure that their peer-reviewed publications are freely accessible through the Publisher's website (Option 1) or an online repository as soon as possible and in any event within six months of publication (Option 2).
• National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI):
  NRC has established a policy making it mandatory, starting in January 2009, for NRC institutes to deposit copies of all peer-reviewed, NRC-authored publications and technical reports in their institutional repository called the NRC Publications Archive (NPArC).
  
  
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC):
  SSHRC has created an Aid to Open-Access Research Journals programme where:
  
  Funds will be awarded to help defray the costs of publishing scholarly articles [in Open Access journals]. Grants are to be considered a contribution to the journal's operating costs for production and distribution. See more information about SSHRC and Open Access.

See Access to Research Results: Guiding Principles, a joint publication of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC.)

• Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF):
  According to their Policy on Access to Research Outputs (pdf):
  
  As of October 1st, 2008, individuals and teams who receive funding from the Foundation for research and related activities are required to make every effort to ensure that the results of their research are published in open access journals (freely available online) or in an online repository of published papers, within six months after initial publication.
• Fonds de la recherche en santé Québec (FRSQ):
  According to their Policy regarding open access to published research outputs:
  
  For new awards or grants issued as of January 2009, awardees or grant holders are encouraged to make all possible efforts to have their peer-reviewed publications posted on open-access Web sites at their earliest convenience, ideally no later than six months after publication or presentation. This can be achieved via the publisher's Web site (in the case of articles) or that of the organizer of the event (in the case of scientific conventions), or via online repositories.
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC):
  Open Access policy is in development.