Share your thoughts: Research in French

Current status: Open

From February 17 to May 11, 2025

On October 22, 2024, the Government of Canada announced the establishment of the External Advisory Panel on the Creation and Dissemination of Scientific Information in French (Advisory Panel).

From February 17 to May 11, 2025, the Panel will be conducting an online consultation on the creation and dissemination of scientific knowledge in French in Canada.

The Panel’s Terms of Reference consist in making recommendations on the development of a federal strategy for research in French.

Who is the focus of this consultation

In recent years, several stakeholders have alerted public authorities to the challenges associated with creating and disseminating scientific knowledge in French. There have been promising proposals in several reports, some of which have already been implemented, such as the Service d’aide à la recherche en français (SARF), a Canada-wide inter-university service that provides crucial support to French-speaking researchers in minority settings.

The Advisory Panel wants to broaden the debate on French-language research in Canada to include organizations and individuals who have not previously had the opportunity to express their views. The aim of this online consultation is to solicit testimonials, reflections or briefs that will contribute to the Panel’s work.

The Advisory Panel encourages the following groups to submit a brief or a testimonial:

• researchers from all disciplines, linguistic contexts and research environments (colleges and universities, industries, community organizations, governments)
• stakeholders from publishing, journalism, the library community, scholarly journal platforms, higher education and knowledge mobilization
• any other stakeholders whose input would be relevant to the Advisory Panel’s Terms of Reference

Key questions for discussion

The Panel encourages participants to answer the following questions:

• What is your assessment of the situation surrounding the creation and dissemination of scientific knowledge in French in your context? What challenges do you face?
• What measures should the Government of Canada include in a strategy to ensure the vitality and sustainability of research in French? How should the Government of Canada contribute to training the next generation, creating and disseminating scientific knowledge in French, and recognizing the role of Francophone researchers in the advancement of knowledge?
• Do you have any examples of best practices to share from your own context—in terms of training the next generation, creating and disseminating scientific knowledge in French, and recognizing French-language research—that might be useful to the Advisory Panel in developing its recommendations?

Join in: how to participate

You will be asked to provide and email address so that a member of the Advisory Panel Secretariat staff can contact you for the documents or files you wish to submit.

Contact the Advisory Panel