Annual Report
2016–2017

Presentation

In partnership with Canadian libraries and scholarly publishers, Érudit works toward the digital dissemination of academic and cultural publications in the humanities and social sciences.

Érudit is an interuniversity consortium made up of the University of Montreal, Laval University and the University of Quebec at Montreal. It receives support from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture. Since 2014, Érudit has been recognized as a major science initiative by the Canadian Fund for Innovation.


Mission

Érudit’s mission is to circulate and promote knowledge, and provide access to bodies of knowledge to facilitate research. Érudit works to promote open access dissemination of research.


A word from Frédéric

Scientific publishers face major challenges today. Libraries’ acquisition budgets are being cut, business is being concentrated in the hands of just a few major commercial publishers and new methods of producing, disseminating and accessing research are changing the very nature of scientific publishing.

Érudit sought to respond effectively to these challenges over the course of 2016-2017, strengthening its relationships with the different members of Canada’s scientific community and developing further opportunities for international collaboration. In recognition of its efforts, Érudit received two grants from the Canadian Fund for Innovation: one as part of the Major Science Initiatives Fund and one under the Cyberinfrastructure Initiative.

I look forward to continuing working with the board of directors and management of Érudit to consolidate our achievements, prepare for the future and make Érudit a truly international research platform.

Frédéric Bouchard
Frédéric Bouchard
Chair of the board of directors

A word from Tanja

2016–2017 was a year of major consolidation. Érudit’s technological infrastructure was completely updated and migrated to the facilities of Calcul Québec, while the distribution platform got a major visual and software overhaul. These efforts at strengthening the fundamental pillars of Érudit’s activities will allow us to swiftly and effectively adapt to evolving practices in academic publishing and research in the humanities and social sciences in the years to come.

I’d like to emphasize the excellent work done by all the Érudit staff, who contributed their diverse range of skills, as well as all of our Canadian and international partners. I’d also like to thank the members of our board of directors for supporting and guiding us with our ambitious projects. Thanks to their unwavering commitment, Érudit is better equipped than ever to tackle the many new challenges facing scientific publishing.

Tanja Niemann
Tanja Niemann
Executive director

Activities

Publishing

Érudit began distributing eight new journals in 2017:

  • Cahiers Charlevoix

    • Scholarly journal
      Anthropology and Ethnology
      Restricted access to current issues
    • Founded in Sudbury in 1992, Société Charlevoix is an association of academics who carry out scholarly research in the field of Franco-Ontarian studies. Cahiers Charlevoix: Études franco-ontariennes has been published by Société Charlevoix since 1995. The journal is exclusively devoted to the dissemination of the members’ research.
  • Ontario History

    • Scholarly journal
      History
      Restricted access to current issues
    • Ontario History is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that is published bi-annually by the Ontario Historical Society. As Ontario’s premier history journal, it discusses a wide variety of topics relating to the province’s past.
  • Revue de psychoéducation

    • Scholarly journal
      Education, Psychology
      Restricted access to current issues
    • Revue de psychoéducation promotes the publication of articles addressing core issues surrounding psychosocial maladaptation, dealing with description, etiology, prevalence, prediction, diagnosis and prognosis, intervention, and the effectiveness of intervention.
  • Revue Gouvernance

    • Scholarly journal
      Political Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Management
      Full open access
    • Revue Gouvernance is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes theoretical, empirical and critical articles addressing one or more dimensions of public and social governance in Canada and around the world.
  • Revue musicale OICRM

    • Scholarly journal
      Arts
      Full open access
    • Revue musicale OICRM (RMO) is a French-language electronic journal that disseminates publications contributing to the development of the research program of the OICRM (Multidisciplinary Observatory for Musical Creation and Research), offering new perspectives in the field.
  • Revue québécoise de psychologie

    • Scholarly journal
      Psychology
      Restricted access to current issues
    • Revue québécoise de psychologie’s mission is to disseminate high-quality, French-language scientific and clinical works in the field of psychology that can be useful in various professional practices.
  • Simmel Studies

    • Scholarly journal
      Philosophy, Sociology
      Restricted access to current issues
    • Simmel Studies has played an important role in the international rediscovery of the work of Georg Simmel, bringing together contributions from many international scholars.
  • TicArtToc

    • Cultural journal
      Humanities and Social Sciences
      Restricted access to current issues
    • A tool for thought and creation, TicArtToc offers a unique view of interculturalism while deconstructing common stereotypes of “the Other.”

Communications

New visual identity
In support of the launch of the new Érudit platform in winter 2017, we carried out a full overhaul of our visual identity, including our logo. Learn more at erudit.org/en/identite
Communication campaign
We launched a communication campaign in winter 2017 titled “You can never know too much.” The campaign included posters, digital visuals and promotional items which directed the public to the campaign’s website jamaistrop.erudit.org

Presentations

Presentations made during the year

2016

  • May
    • Montreal, Canada
    • Forum on scholarly publishing in the digital era, ACFAS conference (presentation)
    • Calgary, Canada
    • “Extension of the Érudit-CRKN Partnership for Open Access,” Annual CALJ Conference (presentation)
  • June
    • Vancouver, Canada
    • “Concurrent 4C: Collaborative Partnerships between Libraries and Scholarly Journals: Building Innovative Relationships for Open Access,” Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting 2016. (presentation)
    • Victoria, Canada
    • “Innovative Interrogations” conference: “Modelling, Prototyping and Making,” Digital Humanities Summer Institute, INKE.
  • July
    • Montreal, Canada
    • Organization of the first conference of the Substance Consortium and establishment of a development roadmap for publishers Texture.
  • August
    • Canada
    • Participation in the first virtual conference of the Canadian Scholarly Publishing Working Group. -> More information
  • September
    • Quebec City, Canada
    • Workshop by the Canadian Fund for Innovation and the Fonds de recherche du Québec (presentation).
  • October
    • Paris, France
    • “From writing to markup: Rethinking the editorial process of scholarly journals,” presentation of the Stylo tool as part of the Salon de la revue, a journal exhibition.
    • Paris and Lyon, France
    • Participation in conferences by major research infrastructure player 
Huma-Num (presentation)
    • Halifax, Canada
    • Presentation of the renewed partnership at the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)
    • Montreal, Canada
    • Kiosk at the Congrès des professionnels de l’information (Information Professionals Convention)
  • November
    • Montreal, Canada
    • Work seminar and hackathon with the Huma-Num team
    • Montreal, Canada
    • Meeting of researchers involved in the CO-SHS project
    • Toronto, Canada
    • Participation by the IT team at PyCon Canada
  • December
    • London, UK
    • STM Week: “The future of scholarly publishing in a global, many stakeholder environment and how to survive it” (presentation)

2017

  • January
    • Victoria, Canada
    • INKE gathering: “Networked Open Social Scholarship” (presentation)

Major achievements

Two major grants awarded

As a result of its major strategic planning and management consolidation efforts, Érudit’s grant under the Major Scientific Initiative program by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (MSI, 2014-2016) was renewed for a five-year term (2017-2022). The grant money will help cover Érudit’s operating costs, while another grant from the CFI will help finance research and development activities from 2017 to 2020 (Cyberinfrastructure Initiative). To learn more about the CO.SHS project, visit:

-> co-shs.ca

These two major grants were obtained thanks to the consolidation of a strategic partnership with Simon Fraser University’s Public Knowledge Project (PKP). Over the years, Érudit and PKP have developed complementary software and distribution and research systems, offering journals a comprehensive range of services to support all their publishing activities. This partnership naturally grew stronger, first as a result of the Synergies project, and then moving forward from there.

Érudit continues to expand its activities by making its services available to all of Canada’s research community. In doing so, it seeks to provide even more effective support to scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences as the environment shifts to an open-access model.


Partnership for Open Access renewed

In 2014, the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, an initiative by three federal granting agencies, came into effect. The policy calls for barrier-free access to scientific articles within 12 months of their publication.

To this end, Érudit adopted a new business model that would enable it to finance open access to publications in the social sciences and humanities. Essentially, it would continue to fulfil its mission of supporting scholarly journals in Quebec and Canada through innovation and concerted efforts in a constantly evolving digital environment.

For example, it transformed the sales program from subscriptions to the previous two years of publications to an open-access support partnership. Over the course of 2016–2017, the initial implementation of the new business model, made possible thanks to the collaboration of the member research libraries of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, was extended for an additional year. This allowed Érudit to continue developing the partnership model, which needs to have a solid presence in Canada before it can be deployed in the rest of the world.

-> Learn more


Key accomplishments:

  1. Reducing the restricted access period from 24 to 12 months

    • The restricted access period for articles in journals distributed through Érudit was reduced from 24 months to 12 months. This change brings the journals into compliance with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications and helps promote the dissemination of their articles.
    • -> Learn more
  2. Support fund for open-access journals

    • The Partnership for Open Access with Canadian university libraries approved the creation of a support fund valued at over $100,000 aimed at fully open-access journals. The fund supports around 20 scholarly journals that face financing challenges.
  3. Helping journals transition to an open-access distribution model

    The Érudit team assisted four journals with the transition from paid access to fully open access:

    • Lien social et Politiques.
      • Lien social et Politiques is an international and multidisciplinary journal in the humanities that examines social bonds, social skills, social problems and related public policies. It was first published in 1979.
      • -> Learn more
    • Philosophiques.
      • Published since 1974 by the Société de philosophie du Québec, Philosophiques publishes articles that contribute to the advancement of knowledge in all disciplines of philosophy and the history of philosophy.
      • -> Learn more
    • Criminologie.
      • Criminologie is a research journal aimed at scientists and criminal justice professionals. This theme-based journal deals with the current concerns and interests of criminologists in Quebec, the rest of Canada, the United States and Europe.
      • -> Learn more
    • Téoros.
      • Since its creation in 1982, Téoros has contributed to the development and dissemination of tourism-related research from a multidisciplinary perspective.
      • -> Learn more

Overhauling the distribution platform

With Érudit’s distribution platform last updated in 2008, a major operation was carried out to overhaul the software and visual identity of the website using grant money from the Major Science Initiatives Fund.

A user committee was especially created for this operation. This committee, composed of 20 stakeholders in the distribution of scientific publications (librarians, heads of journals, researchers), identified features for rapid implementation and new services for subsequent development. The overhaul of the distribution platform also gave us an opportunity to review the technological infrastructure and take steps to make it more scalable, which will be necessary in an environment of rapid and continuous transformation. The potential addition of new services was planned and greatly simplified, while access to articles was reworked to give them a more effective and targeted online presence. Finally, the website is now equipped with responsive design optimized for various devices (phones, tablets and laptops).

While upgrading the platform, the technical team reinforced its use of open-source software in line with Érudit’s commitment to the sharing of knowledge. All of the developments were completed using the GitHub collaborative platform, a Linux operating system and Python programming language. Finally, the Érudit platform’s physical and application infrastructure was transferred to the facilities of Calcul Québec in accordance with Érudit’s national mission.

-> erudit.org

Our organization

Team and governance

Our team

Our team currently consists of more than 15 professionals from the publishing, documentation and IT fields.

Three new employees joined our team in 2016−2017:

  1. Élise Bergeron fills the role of Director of Operations. Élise worked more than 10 years in literary publishing and also served as deputy director of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (Quebec Writers’ Union).
  2. Sarah Cameron-Pesant did her master’s thesis on the analysis and open access distribution of scholarly articles. She contributes her expertise to Érudit as Digital Information Analyst.
  3. Érudit needs to organize its operations as its activities expand. Anderson Carneiro is helping to consolidate these efforts in his role as Financial Management Analyst.

Our Board of Directors

Érudit’s Board of Directors consists of figures from the worlds of research, university libraries and publishing.

Chair
Frédéric Bouchard
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Montreal

 

Vice-president
Loubna Ghaouti
Library Director, Laval University

 

Secretary-Treasurer
Lynda Gadoury
Executive Director of Libraries, University of Quebec at Montreal
  • Observers
    • Marie-Thérèse Duquette
      • Head of Partnership Development and Programs, Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQSC)
    • Vincent Larivière
      • Associate Professor, the University of Montreal, Scientific Director, Érudit
    • Brent Roe
      • CRKN representative, University Librarian, Laurentian University
  • Members
    • Marie Audette
      • President of the Study Committee, Laval University
    • Richard Dumont
      • Executive Director, Libraries Branch, the University of Montreal
    • Benoît Melançon
      • Professor, Department of French Literature, the University of Montreal
    • Philippe Maubant
      • Director of the journal Phronesis and Professor, University of Sherbrooke

Financial Statement

April 1st 2016 to March 31st 2017

Income

  • 2017
  • 2016
  • Publishing and marketing services, partnerships

    • 1 412 715
    • 1 416 573
  • Government grants

    • 723 144
    • 654 569
  • Contributions of the three Consortium members

    • 266 047
    • 425 490
  • Other income

    • 578
    • 3 100
  • Total

    • 2 402 484
    • 2 499 742

Expenses

  • 2017
  • 2016
  • Publishing and marketing services, partnerships

    • 933 988
    • 1 035 763
  • Payroll and technology support services

    • 1 471 443
    • 1 274 307
  • Professional fees and subcontracting

    • 363 152
    • 271 680
  • Administration

    • 39 527
    • 138 932
  • Advertising and communications

    • 61 619
    • 47 034
  • Total

    • 2 869 729
    • 2 767 716

Financial Results

  • 2017
  • 2016
  • Current assets

    • 1 969 034
    • 1 623 287
  • Current liabilities

    • 1 852 735
    • 1 039 743
  • Partner’s equity

    • 116 299
    • 583 544

Partners

Associates

  • Université de Montréal
  • Université Laval
  • Université du Québec à Montréal

Partners

  • Agence universitaire de la Francophonie
  • Canadian Science Publishing
  • Centre d’expertise numérique pour la recherche
  • Centre for Digital Scholarship
  • Fondation canadienne pour l’innovation
  • Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et Culture
  • Persée
  • Public Knowledge Project
  • Presses de l’Université de Montréal
  • Réseau canadien de la documentation pour la recherche
  • Société de développement des périodiques culturels québécois