Announcing updates to SSHRC’s Aid to Scholarly Journals grants

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The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) 2025 Aid to Scholarly Journals (ASJ) funding opportunity is transitioning to support journals that will offer free and immediate access to content (immediate open access [OA]). This change aligns with the current review of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. The updated policy will require that any peer-reviewed journal publications arising from agency-supported research be freely available at the time of publication. The transition of the ASJ will help support free and fast access to digitally published Canadian social sciences and humanities research results for readers throughout Canada and around the world.

Over the course of the past 20 years, SSHRC support via the ASJ funding opportunity has enabled greater discoverability and dissemination of original research results in the social sciences and humanities, first by encouraging Canadian scholarly journals to transition from print-only publications to digital publishing, and subsequently by enabling journals’ transition to OA.

In December 2023, SSHRC announced a one-year delay for the next ASJ competition, pushing its launch to June 2025. This delay allowed time for engagement with the research community—including journal editors, librarians, scholarly publishing experts and other stakeholders—to ensure an effective, sustainable and equitable transition of the ASJ funding opportunity to immediate OA.

The transition takes an iterative approach, with changes being implemented gradually over the course of the 2025 and 2028 cycles. Key updates to the ASJ funding opportunity include:

• Increasing available funding
  The ASJ competition budget will see a significant increase in 2025. The annual maximum funding will be increasing to $52,000 for established journals operating in immediate OA without article processing charges (APCs).
• Moving from delayed to immediate OA
  The 2025 cycle will serve as a transition period for journals operating in delayed OA or charging APCs. Future ASJ funding cycles will only support journals that operate in immediate OA without APCs.
• Promoting digital publishing best practices
  To further advance publishing best practices and innovation, the ASJ funding opportunity will introduce adjustments to the merit review criteria, and increase the maximum supplement for innovation (towards costs related to developing and implementing innovative practices) to $10,000 annually.
• Enhancing flexibility for distribution platform hosting fees
  The targeted supplement for hosting on a not-for-profit platform will be eliminated. Journals will continue to be able to use their ASJ funding for distribution platform hosting fees, as per regulations set out in the Tri-agency Guide on Financial Administration.
• Supporting emerging journals
  A new funding stream will be created for emerging journals operating with immediate OA without APCs.

Quick facts

• The ASJ funding opportunity supports Canadian scholarly research and dissemination by offering a contribution to enable journals to defray the costs associated with publishing OA scholarly articles and digital journal dissemination.
• The draft, revised Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications was released February 25, 2025. Feedback from the community is invited until March 31, 2025.
• The next ASJ competition will be launched in June 2025, with the deadline to submit applications in September 2025. Results from the 2025 ASJ competition will be announced in March 2026.

For more information

Email : scholarlyjournals@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca