Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good evening, members of the committee. Thank you for having me. The team and the members of Consortium Érudit join me in saying that we are honoured to testify as part of this important study on research and publication in French. From the outset I would like to point out three things to the committee.
First, know that Canada has in Érudit a jewel in the digital delivery of knowledge in human and social sciences in French, as well as in English. The founding members, Université de Montréal, Université du Québec à Montréal and Université Laval, have been investing in Consortium Érudit for nearly 25 years. Other major investments come from the Government of Quebec and then the Government of Canada through two agencies, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines. Through this public funding and a capacity to bring together players from the research community, including university libraries in Canada and abroad, Érudit has become a great ship with wind in its sails. It is a success story that needs to be acknowledged. The project was born in Quebec and today it is a great Canadian success.
If you are looking for a digital library, erudit.org has an exceptional offering, disseminating more than 140,000 articles and collaborating with more than 200 Canadian scientific journals in disciplines as diverse as criminology, geography, visual arts, history or health sciences. Erudit.org is a digital infrastructure combining cutting edge technology and human knowledge. In the vast majority of cases, the content is distributed at no cost to the reader and is therefore accessible to everyone: the universities, but also, and especially, the general public. We work on the discoverability of science in French and are committed to open source knowledge sharing. The Érudit platform is well used. Nearly 34 million documents are downloaded annually by 5.6 million users. Nearly two thirds of these consultations come from abroad, clearly demonstrating that the knowledge produced in Canada is researched internationally.
I am very grateful to all those who believe in Érudit, those who support us financially and as partner-collaborators. I am also thankful to the thousands of researchers who use Érudit's services daily.
Second, I would say that on the high seas, where Érudit navigates, there are immense challenges, waves and storms to negotiate. The biggest challenge right now is the ability to compete with titans, international corporate giants. The oligopoly of large publishers, an issue that has come before this committee, disseminates very little science in French because it is not profitable enough. In that context, without players like Érudit, science in French simply would not be disseminated or would be for only a small group willing to pay for it. With Érudit, Canada conserves scientific heritage in human and social sciences, maintains control over the results of research done within institutions and keeps this knowledge and data on local servers to use them independently without any commercial considerations. With Érudit, we also support a central function of so-called national and international journals, which is to provide a place of publication for the results of research into specifically Canadian problems, likely to directly affect our society.
Third, and by way of conclusion, I would say that on the high seas, where Érudit is currently navigating with those who lead these Canadian academic journals, the sea is quite agitated. We are living in a time of turbulence and change. There are both great opportunities and great risks. I would say that we need to reclaim scholarly publishing and that requires stable and predictable funding, as well as funding programs that favour the non-commercial model, open science, valorization and the recognition of researchers who ensure leadership for journals and the supervision, writing, evaluation and review of articles. Enhancing knowledge generation in French to its rightful place as a public good is of national interest to us. We need a concerted effort by all players to get through this storm.
Recent political announcements on open science and open access, such as Plan S or the new White House policy, are encouraging to me.
Will we finally take these opportunities to build the most open and diverse system there can be?
Thank you for your attention.