The vitality and popularity of French-language scholarly journals in Ontario confirm the relevance of a new Canadian space for education and research in French.
Érudit has supported the creation of the Université de l’Ontario français (UOF) from the outset, as well as the launch of Enjeux et société: Approches transdisciplinaires, a new scholarly digital journal in complete open access created by the UOF. Érudit shares the values of collaboration and innovation that lie at the heart of this project, which endorses the principle of open access to knowledge. Following the guidelines adopted by the granting agencies, the UOF has stated its mission to promote immediate open access and plans to develop a policy to this end.
“With its transdisciplinary research and education, its commitment to open science and to linguistic decompartmentalization, the UOF embodies what the XXIst century university should aspire to become: a space for encounters and creation”, noted Vincent Larivière, professor at the Université de Montréal and scientific director of Érudit. “This will profit not only 600 000 Franco-Ontarians, but also the 9,8 million Francophones living in Canada. This university will become an unprecedented promotion tool for the province of Ontario and its researchers all across the Francophonie”, he added.
Ontario is the second major Canadian province in terms of usage of the erudit.org platform, with over 200 000 annual visits to its online publications. Several Franco-Ontarian scholarly journals are also disseminated on the platform, such as Reflets, Francophonies d’Amérique, and Gouvernance. Moreover, 16 Ontario university libraries support all of the journals disseminated on the platform—most of which are published in French—as members of the Partnership for Open Access. Érudit’s evolution into a pan-Canadian infrastructure also confirms the importance and necessity to foster national French-language research in the humanities and social sciences.
As the main dissemination platform for French-language resources in the humanities and social sciences in North America, and as a major scientific infrastructure, Érudit adds its voice to those of the many scientific organizations who have already shown their commitment to ensuring that the Université de l’Ontario français is finally established.