The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy requires certain research publications arising from federally funded research to be made openly available. The requirements vary depending on when you received your award.
Use the 2026 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy compliance requirements if your grant or Chair award was awarded on or after January 1, 2027.
Use the 2015 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy compliance requirements if your grant was awarded between May 1, 2015, and December 31, 2026.
The Libraries can help you understand your obligations, retain author rights and deposit publications in UWSpace to support compliance.
Not sure which requirements apply to your research? Contact us at uwspace@uwaterloo.ca for assistance with compliance, author rights and open access publishing options.
2026 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy compliance
This information applies to agency grants and Chair awards awarded on or after January 1, 2027.
For grants awarded between May 1, 2015, and December 31, 2026, refer to the 2015 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy compliance section below.
Scope
The 2026 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy applies to grants and Chair awards funded by NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR, the three Canadian federal granting agencies, on or after January 1, 2027.
The policy requires peer-reviewed research articles, including journal articles, and conference papers resulting from these grants, to be published open access and freely available immediately.
The policy does not apply to:
- student and postdoctoral awards and fellowships (e.g. Canada Graduate Scholarships)
- research publications other than peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g., book chapters, monographs, infographics, podcasts)
- underlying research data, data management plans, data dissemination or retention
For more information about policy changes, consult the Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions (2026 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications).
How do I comply?
There are three components to compliance:
1. Acknowledge agency contributions
The Agencies require authors to include the following statement in their research articles:
“This work was supported, in whole or in part, by funding from [AGENCY FULL NAME (AGENCY ACRONYM)], [FRN or APPLICATION NUMBER and any applicable persistent identifiers (PIDs)]”.
For example:
“This work was supported, in whole or in part, by funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), RGPIN-2027-01234”
Any applicable persistent identifiers (PIDs) (such as Grant iDs).
More information about agency contribution acknowledgement can be found below:
- CIHR: Acknowledging CIHR support and promoting your research
- NSERC: Acknowledgement and logos
- SSHRC: Acknowledging SSHRC support
2. Ensure your work can be made open access
There are two options to meet this requirement:
A) Publish open access
- Publish your article in an open access journal or through an open access option offered by a publisher. This may require payment of an article processing charge (APC).
- Reputable Open Access journals may be found on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for all disciplines.
B) Deposit your accepted manuscript in UWSpace.
- If your publisher allows immediate sharing of the accepted manuscript, you can deposit this version in UWSpace without paying a fee.
- You must ensure that your accepted manuscript has a Creative Commons license (e.g. CC-BY). Use Open policy finder to check publisher policies, or contact uwspace@uwaterloo.ca for assistance.
- See Retaining Author Rights – Subscription Journals and How do I self-archive my work/deposit in UWSpace? for more information.
You may find the FAQ: How can I publish OA immediately without paying an APC? helpful.
3. Deposit your work in a Canadian institutional repository or a trusted Canadian platform
To comply with a policy, your article must be available through either:
- a Canadian institutional repository, such as UWSpace
- a trusted Canadian platform
If you deposited your accepted manuscript in UWSpace, you have already met this requirement.
If you have published through an open access publisher, check whether the journal is hosted on a trusted Canadian platform. If it is, no additional action is required.
If your publication is not hosted or made available on a Canadian trusted platform, deposit the publication in UWSpace.
More information on self-archiving/depositing works to UWSpace can be found below:
What is a trusted Canadian platform?
A trusted Canadian platform is a reputable Open Access hosting tool for articles that are hosted on Canadian servers.
Examples include:
- Canadian academic library journal hosting platforms, such as journals available through Open Journals @ UWaterloo program
- Journals published using the Public Knowledge Project’s (PKP) Publishing Service
- Érudit
- Scholars Portal Journals
Search for the journal title on Érudit or Scholars Portal Journals to check if your article will be openly available immediately upon publication.
Retaining author rights when publishing in subscription journals
Many publishers allow authors to share an accepted manuscript, but permissions (also known as self-archiving policies) vary by publisher.
To comply with the 2026 policy, you must retain sufficient rights to make your work openly available at the time of publication, or ensure that the publisher applies an open license (e.g., Creative Commons) that permits immediate sharing.
To meet these requirements, you can:
- review your publishing agreement carefully
- inform the publisher of the Tri- Agency’s Open Access Policy on Publications when submitting your article
- consider using the SPARC Canadian Author Addendum to retain important rights, including the right to share your work without embargo
Further information:
- Publisher Agreements – Copyright at Waterloo
- UWSpace Self-Archiving Support
- Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Guide to Author Rights
The Agencies have also developed a rights-retention template that authors may send to publishers. The template is available in step 2 of the Guidance section of Agencies’ Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions.
Questions? Email us at uwspace@uwaterloo.ca.
2015 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy compliance
This information applies only to agency grants (excluding Chairs awards) awarded between May 1, 2015, and December 31, 2026. For grants or Chair awards awarded on or after January 1, 2027, please refer to the revised 2026 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy guidance.
Scope
The 2015 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy applies to research funded by the three Canadian federal granting agencies, and requires peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from these grants to be made open-access and freely available within 12 months of publication. The policy applies to:
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Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants received on or after May 1, 2015
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Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grants received on or after January 1, 2008
The policy does not apply to:
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Canada Graduate Scholarships
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Research publications other than peer-reviewed journal articles (for example, book chapters)
How do I comply?
There are two ways to comply with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy: making your article open access at time of publication, or depositing it into an appropriate research repository.
Deposit your work in an open access repository
You may be able to make your work publicly available by providing access to the accepted manuscript version (also known as a "post-print") after publishing your work in a subscription journal. More information about the different versions of journal articles is available on the UWSpace Guide. Your publisher will have a policy outlining how you are able to deposit your work; these policies may include restrictions on when you can deposit the paper (an embargo) and where (for example, not-for-profit subject and institutional repositories). For more information on what rights you have in re-using your work, see the Author rights guide.
How do I deposit in a repository?
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The University of Waterloo's research repository, UWSpace, satisfies Tri-Agency policy compliance. Select the appropriate "Deposit your work" link on the front page of UWSpace and follow the instructions, or email us the accepted manuscript with a citation to the published version and we'll do it for you.
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Find an appropriate subject-specific repository for your work in the Open Access Directory.
Keep in mind
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Publisher embargo periods: Publishers typically mandate that accepted manuscripts be restricted from public access for a period of time, and this embargo period sometimes exceeds 12 months. If you wish to publish in a journal with a longer embargo period, you will need to obtain permission from the publisher or pay an article processing charge (APC) to make your article open access. Contact us if you need help determining the embargo period for your journal.
Publish an open access article
Many academic journals offer authors the option to publish their article open access, even if the journal is typically only available to subscribers - this is known as "hybrid open access". There is typically a cost associated with open access publishing, which can be several thousand dollars. The use of Tri-Agency funds to pay for open access article processing charges is an acceptable use of grant funds.
Keep in mind
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Not all journals offer open access options.