Coalition Publica 2026 Research Scholarships
Earlier this winter, we announced the launch of the fifth edition of the Coalition Publica scholarship program. Designed for early-career researchers and students, this program aims to support projects or research that address the scholarly communication system and research dissemination, or that apply digital humanities methods to the corpus developed by Coalition Publica.
The submitted projects were evaluated on the basis of the relevance of their research topics and their originality. The grants were awarded in accordance with the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion, and we are pleased to announce today the list of the seven winning projects.
This scholarship program is made possible as part of SSHRC’s Pan-Canadian Access to Knowledge Initiative.
Scholarship recipients:
- On the Alignment of Artificial Intelligence Policies with National Sustainable Development Priorities
Acassia Arnaud – Master’s, University of Ottawa - Transformations des pratiques de Recherche d’Information et les «AI research assistants » : développement d’outils pour valoriser l’agentivité humaine
Alexia Schneider – PhD, Université de Montréal - Un miroir de la discipline? Les approches de recherche des productions étudiantes en sciences de l’éducation au Québec
Frédérique Pagé – Master’s, Université de Montréal - Productrices de savoir: analyse thématique des mémoires et thèses des femmes en sciences, technologie, ingénierie et mathématiques au Québec (1985-2025)
Jacob Hamel-Mottiez – PhD, Université Laval - A Comparison of STEM Technologies Developed Using Funding from Defence-Related Programs and Indigenous Studies Programs
Rabeeh Parhizkari – Master’s, University of Ottawa - Access, Value, and Exclusion: How Paywalls Shape Online Information-Seeking Among Marginalized Users with Limited Information Literacy Skills
Richmond Yeboah – PhD, McGill University - The fast-track to publication: a bibliometric analysis of rapid service fees (RSF) in scholarly publishing
Sherry Kuang – Master’s, University of Ottawa
Discover the winning projects of the 2026 Coalition Publica Student Editor Grants!
This year Coalition Publica is pleased to award two grants to support student editors in developing their skills and implementing best practices in digital scholarly publishing within their journals as part of SSHRC’s Pan-Canadian Access to Knowledge Initiative.
The submitted projects were evaluated by members of the organizing committee of the 2026 Student Journal Forum and our Library User Group on the basis of the relevance and feasibility of project description to the journal’s proposed objectives and were awarded in accordance with the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion.
We are pleased to announce the two winning projects and highlight excerpts from their submitted project descriptions.
Emma Lo, Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research
In collaboration with the Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research team and Stephanie Savage, Librarian Reference (UBC Scholarly Communications and Copyright Services Librarian)
The Canadian Journal of Undergraduate Research (CJUR) is an undergraduate student-led, peer-reviewed academic journal based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. It aims to showcase high-quality research conducted by undergraduate students across Canada while fostering early engagement with scholarly publishing. The journal has a broad, interdisciplinary scope, welcoming submissions from all academic fields, including the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and more.
Description of the project:
“Our project aims to strengthen the quality, accessibility, and sustainability of our journal by building structured support for authors, reviewers, and the broader research community. This initiative will focus on helping emerging authors become publishable while improving editorial consistency and expanding the reach of our published work. One objective is to develop a comprehensive author support program from our editorial team. A second objective will be to strengthen our editorial process by developing structured reviewer rubrics and reviewer/editor training toolkits. Finally, we hope to improve research accessibility for broader audiences by introducing visual abstracts that communicate key findings beyond academic audiences and increase the impact of our authors’ works. We believe this aligns with a growing need for research to be more publicly understandable and shareable.”
Laura Bartert, Omilia : communication, lettres et sciences du langage
In collaboration with the Omilia editorial team and Sophie Saint-Cyr, Open Access and Scholarly Communication Librarian, Université de Sherbrooke
Founded in 2024, Omilia is an
Description of the project:
From its inception, Omilia planned to be a diamond open access journal in order to ensure that knowledge is freely available and accessible in the spirit of open science. The special project “Implementation of Diamond Access” aims to improve the transparency of editorial policies by creating a dedicated subcommittee for the 2026–2027 academic year.
The subcommittee’s objectives will be to:
- prepare the journal to submit an application for inclusion in the DOAJ by the end of the fall 2026 semester;
- manage, develop, and highlight the journal’s structure and editorial policies;
- optimize quality control processes;
- participate in relevant training on best editorial practices related to diamond open access, such as the webinars offered by the Réseau Circé, and stay informed through available resources, such as the guides or roadmaps available on Coalition Publica or through the libraries of Quebec universities.
