Building Connections in Research and Knowledge

About CRKN

For our member organizations and the diverse communities they serve, CRKN empowers researchers, educators, and society with greater access to the world’s research and Canada’s preserved documentary heritage, now and for future generations.

What a fantastic year of growth it has been for CRKN! All of the progress of the past year would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of our Board, committees, task groups, and staff. I am pleased to share some of our most significant achievements from the past year.

With guidance from the Content Strategy Committee, CRKN’s Licensing Team continued to negotiate in alignment with CRKN’s mission to advance interconnected, sustainable access to the world’s research. As we work towards our strategic goal to transform scholarly communication, CRKN pursues multiple pathways to open access. In 2023–2024, CRKN negotiated new cost-neutral read-and-publish agreements with Elsevier and Oxford University Press, and a renewal of our read-and-publish agreement with Sage. These agreements provide access to vital research content and will unlock thousands of articles from Canadian researchers that would otherwise be published behind a paywall. Beyond commercial publishers, CRKN and our members also supported open access initiatives through new funding cycles of the Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) and the second year of MIT Press’s Direct 2 Open pilot project.

I was delighted to celebrate the 5^th anniversary of CRKN’s merger with Canadiana this year. We reflected on the exceptional work that has been accomplished in that time, including the transformational act of removing the paywall, thanks to the financial support of CRKN members. Throughout 2023–2024, CRKN’s Heritage Services and Infrastructure and Development Teams, with support from the Preservation and Access Committee, drove collection development and implemented new user features to improve access to and discovery of the content in Canadiana. We continued to grow the collection, including through exciting digitization projects with members, and we completed Phase II of our Respectful Terminologies Subject Headings project. CRKN further developed and built support for our Digital Collections of the Future project to evolve Canadiana into cutting-edge research infrastructure through a Canada Foundation for Innovation, Innovation Fund application.

Our persistent identifier (PID) program is a vital part of CRKN’s work to support an open, interoperable, and efficient research ecosystem. This year, we were fortunate to receive funding once again through the Digital Research Alliance of Canada to support ORCID-CA and DataCite Canada for the ongoing development and implementation of a national PIDs strategy. We were also delighted to welcome new members to both consortia and to see the growth in PID uptake and understanding in Canada.

I want to express my gratitude to CRKN’s Board of Directors and committees for their oversight and guidance, which have helped CRKN become the innovative organization it is today. I also want to thank our staff for their dedication and hard work, which has been essential to CRKN’s growth over the past year. Additionally, I would like to thank the members for their trust and support, and for working with us towards our shared goal of unrestrained access to knowledge. With the support of these institutions, we will continue to thrive and make a meaningful difference in the Canadian digital research community.

Over the past year, I have had the pleasure of witnessing how the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) drives access to knowledge. CRKN and its members have continued their mission to advance access to the world’s research and to Canada’s heritage content in a sustainable way. I was delighted to join CRKN in welcoming Yukon University as a new Associate Member, marking the first member institution from Canada’s North. In 2023–2024, CRKN’s ongoing work to transform scholarly communication has strengthened the Canadian research ecosystem and I have been inspired by the Canadian library community’s drive to build strong connections that facilitate innovation.

Leveraging the collective purchasing power of its membership, CRKN successfully negotiated key licensing agreements to support Canada’s research community, including a new read-and-publish agreement with Elsevier. CRKN’s read-and-publish agreements are unlocking a massive amount of research, enabling Canadian researchers to publish in the journals of their choosing, and showcasing the enormous value that libraries bring to the research ecosystem. Alongside these agreements with commercial publishers, CRKN continues to work together with its members to support a strong and sustainable open access future through vital, collective investments in open research infrastructure and initiatives.

This year was the fifth anniversary of the merger between CRKN and Canadiana and I was pleased to celebrate the spirit of collaboration that the library community continues to bring to the research ecosystem. Since the merger, CRKN and its members have grown and improved Canadiana to support the needs of the research community and to empower the Canadian public with access to knowledge. In 2023–2024, CRKN’s exciting plans for the future of Canadiana took shape and I am confident in this vision of Canadiana as an accessible, sustainable source of Canada’s heritage for current and future generations. The commitment of CRKN members to support the evolution of this trove of Canadian heritage materials into innovative research infrastructure has been inspiring to see and I know that it will bring immense value to the research community and to Canada.

Another important way that CRKN is supporting research in Canada is through its leadership in Canada’s persistent identifier (PIDs) community. In my work as CRKN’s Board Chair, I have enhanced my understanding of PIDs and become a believer in their potential to support an efficient, interconnected, and open digital research ecosystem. I look forward to the unfolding of the National PIDs strategy and seeing the broad impact of PIDs on the Canadian research landscape.

As you read through this annual report, you will learn more about the accomplishments of the past year and how they have helped CRKN successfully meet the strategic objectives from its 2019–2024 strategic plan. The 2025–2029 strategic plan has taken shape thanks to the engagement of CRKN members, and I look forward to sharing it with the membership at the 2024 Member Summit and AGM. At that time, we will also celebrate CRKN’s 25^th anniversary marking a quarter century of Canadian institutions working together to enable access to knowledge. While this will be my final year as Board Chair, I look forward to seeing how CRKN will drive the evolution of open research through the next strategic plan and beyond – to the next 25 years.

I would like to express my gratitude to CRKN’s 85 members for their ongoing support and engagement. Thank you to the other members of the Board of Directors and volunteers for your expertise and leadership and thank you to the staff team for your dedication. I am inspired to see how knowledge and open research are evolving because of CRKN. The future is very bright.

Welcome to our newest Member!

Yukon University was approved to join the CRKN membership as an Associate Member, participating in the content licensing program, at the Annual General Meeting in October 2023. The institution is the first CRKN member located in Canada’s North, expanding the geographic reach of the membership. This brings the total number of CRKN members to 85.