PubMed Central Canada taken offline in February 2018

In consultation between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the National Research Council (NRC), a decision was made to permanently remove PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada) offline on February 23, 2018. This was done for the following reasons:

  1. Approximately only 4% of author manuscripts arising from CIHR-funded research have been deposited in PMC Canada by researchers since the system was created; and
  2. To continue to operate, PMC Canada requires a number of technical upgrades to meet Government of Canada web and security standards. However, the time and resources to upgrade the system are prohibitive.

CIHR and NRC wish to assure interested parties that the approximately 2,900 manuscripts authored by CIHR-funded researchers, along with all other PMC Canada content, remains publicly searchable on PubMed Central (US) and Europe PubMed Central, meaning such manuscripts will continue to be compliant with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.

What are the alternatives to PubMed Central Canada?

CIHR remains committed to open access and open science, and continues to encourage researchers to deposit their manuscripts in compliant university- and discipline-based repositories and open access journals. For a list of compliant repositories, please consult the Science.gc.ca Open Access website and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries Institutional Repository Project: Online Resource Portal.

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