Science and Research Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I would be pleased to receive a written response from Dr. El Zaïm if he has anything to add, but I am already satisfied with his answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

Now we will go to Mr. Cannings, please.

Mr. Cannings, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us this evening.

I'll start with Ms. Niemann. Just for clarification, I think you were cut off at the very end of your presentation. You mentioned something very briefly, then you just went on to something else. I think you mentioned the Plan S from the United States. I have no idea about it. It seemed important, so I'm just giving you some time to expand on that.

[Tanja Niemann]

Thank you very much.

Yes, indeed, it is very important. These are directives, policies and policy movements that governments currently adhere to, that are in favour of open science and open access.

In Europe, Plan S, developed by cOAlition S, requires governments to subscribe to this movement to make full open access to research a reality. It is accompanied by measures and technical requirements that publishers much comply with. It is truly a political movement, a political framework that prescribes open access and open science with a view to augmenting the discoverability, development and dissemination of science, as well as respond to the problems we are facing with commercial publishers.

For the second part of your question, in the United States, the White House published a directive to every federal agency to implement programs over the next few years prescribing and dictating open access to research funded by the government

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'd like to turn now to Dr. El Zaïm just to get some clarification. I think Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas was talking about these things. You mentioned your first two recommendations were that Canada must commit to translation of some research documents, and that the translations should be disseminated freely. I'm just wondering if you could comment on the practicality of that with copyright issues and with costs, if it's done freely.

Is this going to be restricted to materials that are coming from open access journals, or will it also include the standard journals of science, for instance, where there's going to be a copyright cost, but there's also going to be, I think, a considerable cost to translate? Maybe you could comment and, say, give a guesstimate on how much it would cost to translate a standard research paper.

[Dr. Adel El Zaïm]

Thank you for your question.

I do not have a business plan for a national project like that. I am working from the experience in other countries and other organizations that publish. In Canada, the Translation Bureau could possibly do a feasibility study like that. We know that the efforts are there.

Of course, we are talking about publishing most articles, but especially based on need and in the directions we want. As such, do we need to publish in French more articles on artificial intelligence that were originally written in English? Should they be translated into French or vice-versa?

I am not talking about a $100,000 project or a one-year project. This is a lifelong project, a national project that a country should engage in. It is an ongoing process.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

You have a minute and a half.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Okay. That's lots of time. I would like to maybe stay with Dr. El Zaïm.

We've heard various witnesses throughout this study talk about the concept of impact factor when evaluating research and evaluating grant applications. I'm wondering about your thoughts on that. Is that changing? We've heard from some that there might be movement away from, say, the citation indexes for impact factors.

I want to give you some time to discuss that whole part of this conundrum of how we evaluate research without that.

[Dr. Adel El Zaïm]

Currently, impact factors are strongly disputed, especially when they are identified as impact factors for research whereas, in reality, they are visibility factors for a journal or a paper, based on the number of times a specific paper has been cited.

What is needed today is a thorough assessment of the impacts of research on society or on the innovations made by a country or a society. Right now, when we measure the impact factor, we are actually measuring visibility, not the impact of the actual content.

There are national and international movements can help us to go further in that direction. I am thinking of the DORA declaration, which you undoubtedly heard about in previous meetings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

Again, thank you to our witnesses for all your answers and your testimony. We're now going to go to the second round for five minutes. The Conservative Party has graciously given their time to the Bloc.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have five minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr. El Zaïm, in your opening statement, you made some recommendations. One of them references the fact that Canada could promote scientific publication in French at the international level.

Do you think Canada is playing a leadership role when it comes to increasing the influence of French? Would it be possible to communicate better with the 300 million or so French speakers around the world?

[Dr. Adel El Zaïm]

Definitely.

Canadian leadership needs to be reaffirmed and strengthened. International communities, francophone and non-francophone alike, are watching us closely and asking for our collaboration. I would even say that Canada has a role to play in order to help save French in some francophone countries. There is some international competition in that regard.

Some francophone countries are becoming anglicized. I was in Tunisia and Morocco recently, and I visited more anglophone universities than francophone ones. The people I met addressed me in English more than in French. I have nothing against English, on the contrary. I want everyone to speak more than one language. That being said, it pains me to see French regress or even disappear.

Canada, Quebec and every other province must be leaders in the international Francophonie. We need to regain our place.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Dr. El Zaïm.

To add to what you just said, the Agence universitaire de la francophonie, which has more than 80 member countries, is headquartered in Quebec.

Ms. Niemann, it is good to see you in person.

We know that there has been a global trend of publishing scientific papers in English for decades. As I said earlier, only 8% of learned publications created in Canada since 1960 are in French, and 17% are bilingual. In that difficult context, how can a platform like Érudit find success?

[Tanja Niemann]

Thank you very much for that question.

Érudit is a platform that is almost 25 years old and growing every year. With its current capacity, 20 to 25 new titles can be added each year, sometimes 30. Very few of them are in French. They are mostly bilingual or come from English-only publications.

I do not think the platform is overloaded yet. Year in and year out, our services to the research community are in high demand. New publications are created, and others want to pick up a subject that was abandoned to get in touch with international colleagues and build networks. Indeed, vibrant research communities often form around specific publications.

Instead of working in silos, we obviously keep developing French content, in parallel with English content, and integrating it into international networks.

Let us not forget the importance of international collaboration with platforms that share content in languages other than English. We have to keep working with colleagues in France and Latin and South America, where there is a strong tendency—a tradition, even—to publish in non-commercial publications.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

All right.

We know how important open access is, especially when it comes to the diffusion of science, specifically in French. Annie Pilote, from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, appeared during our committee's last meeting on that very subject.

Do you think the government is doing enough to facilitate access to data from scientific publications in French?

[Tanja Niemann]

I believe that there is still an enormous amount of consultation to be done and that we need a more global approach.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Sorry for interrupting, but the member's time is up.

Perhaps Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas would ask that the answer be provided in writing.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Yes, I would like a written answer from Ms. Niemann. I will happily get back to this topic in another round of questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Yes, you will.

Thank you so much to both of you.

We will go to Mr. Collins for five minutes, please.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses here this evening.

Madam Niemann, I was very intrigued by the stakeholders you have participating in funding the digital library. Could you share with us how the funding component breaks down on an annual basis? You receive federal support—you made that very clear—and it's increased over the years, but also provincially and either from the university sector....

Could you share with us the revenues that feed into the digital library and how that's funded on an annual basis?

[Tanja Niemann]

Yes, of course.

Érudit has an annual budget of about $4.3 million, approximately 18% of which comes from founding universities. Their contribution includes, for instance, financing the space that my team of 40 Érudit employees uses at the University of Montreal. Sometimes, the financing comes as in-kind contributions.

Starting this year, the Government of Quebec provides $500,000, an amount that was recently increased. Revenues from university libraries amount to $1.4 million. The rest of our $4.3 million budget comes from the federal government, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you for that.

I asked that question because I think in your opening you mentioned that, in a perfect world, stable funding is required in order to allow you to function at an optimum level, and I know the not-for-profit sector—having worked with them for many years as a former city councillor—is a very competitive environment in terms of trying to secure government grants and support. When you reference stable funding, what do you have in mind?

[Tanja Niemann]

Thank you for the question.

I think it's really important to have a national plan for open science and open access.

Such a plan must be linked to research funding and grants programs. What is going on right now in university libraries must be taken into account as well, because they want to contribute to open science and open access to cast off the burden of having to pay the big commercial publishers. We also need to work with universities and reclaim the editorial and learned publishing process to fully support it, both horizontally and vertically, so that we are no longer left to the whims of big commercial publishers.

I think that support for learned publications has to be based on public funding and a strong national plan for open science. Other countries have already taken these steps. We need to think about how digital infrastructure is set up. Everything we do relates to technology. Our open technology and digital infrastructure are based on human data and know-how, which has to be protected for longer than what two-year research grants allow. We need to retain and invest in the workforce to see long-term results and achieve greater capacity in the future.

Making sure that policies and programs are in line is also important. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult from an operational standpoint to take the next steps in development and innovation to compete with the major players, who are still commercial in nature at this point.