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New Open Access Policy Introduced for Published Health Research
Through a recent ‘open access’ policy, the federal government’s Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has set a new bar for health research. Starting in 2008, the CIHR will require all recipients of its research grants to ensure that their research publications are freely accessible through the publisher’s website or an online repository within six months of publication.
Although the new policy is said to be an important step towards the ‘open access movement’ in Canada, critics point out that the policy leaves room for improvement. A last-minute change to the policy now provides that publication in an online repository is conditional on publisher permission. Researchers may therefore avoid posting their work if the publisher denies them permission to do so. The Association of American Publishers has also claimed that open access is a threat to independent research and is a form of government censorship.
Despite the above criticisms, it is believed that CIHR’s new policy is likely to place new pressure on other federal major granting councils including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
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