Our memorandum Tisser les savoirs was submitted in summer 2025 as part of an important consultation on the creation and dissemination of scientific information in French in Canada.
This consultation, addressed to the External Advisory Panel on the Creation and Dissemination of Scientific Information in French. Participating organizations were notably invited to formulate recommendations on the strategies to implement to ensure the vitality and sustainability of research in French.
On this page, we present a summary of the issues and arguments laid out in our submission, and we invite you to read the submission itself.
Promoting the Work of French-Language Journals
French-language articles have a national and international reach that cannot be ignored and they offer solutions adapted to local and national realities. Despite that, research in French often lacks visibility and discoverability. To correct that issue, we propose the universal adoption of diamond open access and open licenses. The integration of certain recognized technical standards will guarantee wider discoverability for French-language scientific documents. We can think notably of persistent identifiers, exhaustive and multilingual metadata and indexation in open repositories, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
The Role of Digital Infrastructure
The lack of structuring investments seriously weakens digital infrastructure and undermines its capacity for innovation. All across the world, initiatives rooted in research communities (SciELO, OpenEdition, J-Stage) have shown that with adequate structural support, non-commercial digital infrastructure can easily provide quality services, all while strengthening their respective country’s scientific sovereignty.
Our Recommendations
Our recommendations fit into four distinct categories:
- For a Canadian multilingual and non-commercial scholarly publishing ecosystem
- For more support and recognition for digital research infrastructure
- For an international network of non-commercial publishing in French
- For a concerted national vision for research in French
These focus on people (skills development, awareness campaigns, science diplomacy), financial capital (investment in non-commercial academic journals, support for research on Canada and its regions), and technological tools (strengthening the interoperability of French-language platforms).
Our 12 recommendations are explained in depth in our submission document, which you can read in full below (in French only).