CRKN is committed to fostering non-commercial initiatives that advance open access. We actively seek opportunities to work with institutions, organizations, and publishers to create a more accessible and equitable scholarly landscape. Our commitment to building meaningful collaborations is driven by the understanding that collective efforts can significantly amplify the impact of open access. By fostering these connections, we aim to contribute to a thriving open access ecosystem, breaking down barriers to knowledge dissemination and promoting innovation in scholarly communication.
Please select the initiatives below for more information.
The Partnership for Open Access (POA) enables open access publishing in Canada.
The POA provides financial support to non-commercial scholarly journals through the ongoing commitment of library partners and is based on a close collaboration between all stakeholders of the research ecosystem. Part of the diamond open access movement, the POA is building a collective, equitable, and robust path for the dissemination of knowledge.
For over a decade, the CRKN and Érudit have worked together to promote open access through the POA.
Since its inception in 2014, the POA has pursued a clear objective: to support Canadian scholarly journals and increase open access without relying on Article Processing Charges (APCs). As part of the global movement toward diamond open access, the POA brings together Canadian libraries and journals to build a more equitable and sustainable publishing environment. It provides financial support to non-commercial scholarly journals through the ongoing commitment of library partners and is based on a close collaboration between all stakeholders in the research ecosystem.
Today, the POA represents a community-driven, non-commercial OA model that is well-established in Canada and also recognized internationally. Currently, more than 240 scholarly journals benefit from financial support from over 90 university libraries in Canada and abroad. The POA is also a pillar of Coalition Publica, a pan-Canadian initiative that develops open infrastructure dedicated to research, dissemination, and digital scholarly publishing.
SCOAP³ (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing) is an international open access initiative that was officially launched on January 1, 2014. Convened at CERN in Switzerland, this is the largest scale global open access initiative ever built, involving an international collaboration of over one thousand libraries, library consortia and research organizations. SCOAP³ enjoys the support of funding agencies and has been established in co-operation with leading publishers. Eleven publishers of high quality international journals are participating in SCOAP³. Elsevier, Institute of Physics, and Springer, together with their publishing partners, have been working with the network of SCOAP³ national contact points. Reductions in subscription fees for thousands of participating libraries worldwide have been arranged, making funds available for libraries to support SCOAP³.
CRKN members fully participate in this international initiative, supporting the project through redirection of subscription fees. CRKN coordinates Canada’s contribution and is the signatory for Canada’s participation in the SCOAP³ initiative. This provides CRKN with a seat at the Governing Council table.
SCOAP³ aims to convert to Open Access the peer-reviewed literature in the field of High-Energy Physics by re-directing, on a global level, funds currently used to subscribe to these journals. As National Contact Point (NCP) for Canada, CRKN is tasked with conducting the calculations to determine the level of funding available at Canadian libraries to redirect to the project, and for securing the funding commitments from CRKN member libraries.
For more information on SCOAP³, visit the SCOAP³ Website and the SCOAP³ Repository.
CRKN, in collaboration with the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, has joined SCOSS, the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services. Participating in SCOSS is a valuable opportunity to support international open access and open science services, many of which suffer from unstable or unsustainable funding models. SCOSS identifies and evaluates key services and recommends funding based on a list of set criteria. The SCOSS Advisory Group evaluates funding proposals based on their adherence to best practices for each criterion, with successful proposals being approved by the SCOSS Board. Under this model, services remain independently managed, but SCOSS creates a framework of user representation that shares costs, distributes the labour associated with assessing services, and facilitates a close relationship between services to ensure each is filling its capacity with minimal gaps or overlap. Supporting SCOSS means joining an international partnership of research organizations committed to the enrichment and sustainable funding of open access and open science tools.
Since 2019, CRKN members have invested over €900,000 in support of fifteen open access services and infrastructures. More information on CRKN and CARL and SCOSS by the numbers can be found in this flyer: CRKN & CARL Support for SCOSS.