Journal of Science Policy & Governance
Volume 25, Issue 01 | October 28, 2024

Policy Analysis: Policy Considerations for Canada’s Open Access Publishing Strategy

Gavin M. Douglas
  • North Carolina State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Raleigh, NC, USA
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​Corresponding author:  [email protected] ​​​
Keywords: Canada; open access; Diamond journals; research funding ​
https://doi.org/10.38126/JSPG250107

Executive Summary

Open access publishing is primarily driven by the motivation to make publicly funded research findings freely available to potential readers. This can entail increased costs for authors, research institutions, and funding bodies, although the relative costs for stakeholders of open access publishing depends on the publishing sub-type. This point is highly relevant to Canada’s research funding agencies, which are reviewing their Open Access Policy on Publications, with a renewed policy to be released before 2026. Here, I review the open access publishing options, and I recommend Canadian funding agencies incentivize a shift to Diamond open access publishing.

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Background header image courtesy of science.gc


Gavin M. Douglas is a Postdoctoral Researcher at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on investigating the ecological and evolutionary factors driving rare accessory gene variation across microbial strains in nature. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Microbiology & Immunology from Dalhousie University in 2021 and holds MSc and BSc degrees in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. He was Co-President of Science & Policy Exchange from December 2022–November 2023. He is also on the Managing Board of the (not-for-profit) open access reviewing platform ‘Peer Community In Genomics’, which is associated with the Diamond open access journal ‘Peer Community Journal’.

Acknowledgements 
I would like to thank A. S. MacCara, Jekoniya Chitereka, William Ota, and Dominique Roche for their valuable comments. I would also like to thank volunteers from Science & Policy Exchange and the National Science Policy Network Writer’s Room (led by Anastasia Bernat) for their feedback. An early version of this article, which has since been heavily revised, was posted as a Canadian Science Policy Centre online editorial (under no copyright). I would like to thank the Canadian Science Policy Centre for granting me permission to submit this updated manuscript to the Journal of Science Policy and Governance.​

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