The Chief Scientist of Québec, Rémi Quirion, is pleased to announce that the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) are joining cOAlition S to implement immediate open access to scientific publications resulting from the research they fund. In doing so, the FRQ are joining forces with several funding agencies around the world that are working to accelerate the deployment of open access.

Launched in 2018, cOAlition S established the Plan S initiative to accelerate the transition towards open access to scientific publications. Organizations adhering to Plan S require that scientific articles resulting from their funding be made available in open access immediately upon publication.

Since 2019, the FRQ require that scientific articles generated by the research they fund be made available in open access within 12 months of publication. The FRQ will therefore amend their Open Access Policy to eliminate, by March 2023, this 12-month delay. Aware of the impacts that this change could have on the scientific and student community, the FRQ will gradually deploy the 10 principles of Plan S and establish measures to support members of this community.

Removing fee and time barriers will allow anyone to immediately and freely access publications that expose the results of publicly funded research. This change will be of particular benefit to those who do not have access to institutional subscriptions to scientific journals, for instance at the college and governmental levels, but also more broadly to citizens.

Visit the open science section of our website!

“We are proud to support initiatives that maximize the discoveries made by Québec researchers and promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge generated by public funds, to as many of our fellow citizens as possible.”
−Rémi Quirion, Chief Scientist of Québec

“I am delighted that FRQ are joining the growing global coalition of funders that support Plan S, thereby enabling full and immediate Open Access to the research outcomes that they fund. The past months have so clearly demonstrated the importance of Open Science for fostering research collaboration on the global scale and for delivering the benefit of science to society.”
– Marc Schiltz, President of Science Europe and Chair of the cOAlition S Leaders Group


Information

Emmanuelle Lévesque
Research Ethics Advisor
Fonds de recherche du Québec
514 873-2114, extension 4280