Canadian Institutes for Health Research: Open Access to Research

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

**  with apologies for cross-posting  **

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has just issued
this announcement:

Open access to health research publications: CIHR unveils new
policy http://www.irsc.gc.ca/e/34851.html

Les Institutes de recherche et sante du Canada a publie pour
diffusion immediate:

Libre acces aux publications sur les recherches en sante: Les
IRSC lancent une nouvelle politique
http://www.irsc.gc.ca/f/34851.html

Policy details in brief:

"grant recipients must make every effort to ensure that their
peer-reviewed research articles are freely available as soon as
possible after publication...by depositing the article in an
archive, such as PubMed Central or an institutional repository,
and/or by publishing results in an open access journal. A growing
number of journals already meet these requirements and
CIHR-funded researchers are encouraged to consider publishing in
these journals...grant recipients are now required to deposit
bioinformatics, atomic, and molecular coordinate data, as already
required by most journals, into the appropriate public database
immediately upon publication of research results.. Researchers
are encouraged to make use of the SHERPA RoMEO Publisher
Copyright Policies and Self-Archiving service to determine
whether publishers policies are compliant with the policy, and
the policy clarifies that article processing fees for open access
publishing are an eligible expense under the Use of Grant Funds".

Notable quotes from the Press Release:

Timely and unrestricted access to research findings is a defining
feature of science, and is essential for advancing knowledge and
accelerating our understanding of human health and disease,"
stated Dr. Alan Bernstein, President of the Canadian Institutes
of Health Research. "With the development of the internet it is
now feasible to disseminate globally and easily the results of
research that we fund. As a publicly-funded organization, we have
a responsibility to ensure that new advances in health research
are available to those who need it and can use it - researchers
world-wide, the public and policy makers.

This open access policy will serve as a model for other funding
agencies, said Dr. James E. Till of the Princess Margaret
Hospital in Toronto [Chair of the Task Force that developed this
policy]. The policy will leverage taxpayers' investment by
accelerating research and by fostering its broader application.

My comments (and those of others ) on the CIHR policy as yet another
example of Canadian Leadership in the Open Access Movement:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2007/09/canadian-institutes-of-
health-research.html

The library community in Canada can be proud of our participation,
through strong pro-open access-submissions,  in the consultation
leading to this policy.

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
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