In 1999, the Canadian National Site Licensing Project (CNSLP) was created with the support of 64 Canadian universities and funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and provincial governments. Its goal was to bolster the research and innovation capacity of Canada’s universities by licensing electronic versions of scholarly publications on a national scale. Over time this work would grow and the CNSLP became more formalized, ultimately being incorporated as a non-profit corporation, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN).
This year, the CRKN community, is excited to celebrate our 25th anniversary and reflect on the accomplishments and progress made throughout our 25 years of advancing access to knowledge.
CRKN continues to bring strong value to our now 87 member institutions through our content licensing program. Over time, our scope has broadened to include support for open access initiatives that are vital to achieving equitable and sustainable access to knowledge. In addition to growing our content licensing and open access program, CRKN has taken on an active role in making the research ecosystem more interconnected and reliable through our support for persistent identifiers, beginning with the ORCID-CA consortium in 2016, followed by co-management of the DataCite Canada consortium starting in 2020. In 2018, CRKN and Canadiana merged, growing CRKN’s programs to include heritage content and infrastructure. Thanks to the financial support of CRKN members, CRKN removed the paywall to access content on Canadiana in 2019 ensuring that this vital knowledge about the Canadian past would be widely accessible.
These programs, initiatives, and the collaborations with many partners and institutions, have made an incredible impact on the Canadian research ecosystem and beyond and have built a strong foundation for our future in driving the evolution of open knowledge.
Over the coming months, we will share more with our community about milestones and stories that have helped shape CRKN and showcase our commitment to advancing access to knowledge since 1999.
We extend our gratitude to CRKN members, partners, community, staff, and volunteers, both present and past, for their ongoing support and collaboration over the years, making these achievements possible.