John Willinsky was named a Member of the Order of Canada on December 31st, 2025, for almost three decades of dedication to making knowledge public through his PKP work. In this post, we reflect on how the generous support of PKP’s contributors, reflecting the deeply collective nature of the project, made this work possible.
In a year marked by uncertainty, the final day of 2025 offered a note of light when the Governor General of Canada Mary Simon announced those who, having made a positive difference to the country from many walks of life, were being accorded an appointment in the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest honours.
Among those named is John Willinsky. He was made a Member of the Order of Canada for nearly three decades of work on the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). How is it that such a project ends up fulfilling the Order’s motto, “They desire a better country”?
The endurance and remarkable growth of PKP since its founding in 1998 speaks to John’s steady commitment to a fairer, more open scholarly publishing ecosystem.
PKP is rooted in the idea that knowledge generated in academic spaces, often funded by the public, should serve readers and empower scholars to bring positive change to communities around the world including those that have long been unduly exploited by dominant systems, both in publishing and in society more broadly.
John’s original idea drew on the optimism of the digital age to create new ways of improving access to scholarship. His vision included making research a public good on a global scale, opening doors to more full and equitable participation than what existed before. In this context, the motto of the Order of Canada, “Desiderantes Meliorem Patriam” or “They desire a better country,” feels both fitting and exact.
While the Order of Canada appointment rightly names John Willinsky, he was quick to recognize, in a January 5th 2026 interview with CBC’s Stephen Quinn on the appointment, that what has been honored reflects the collective achievement of others spanning nearly three decades. It has only succeeded as the result of scholars, librarians, knowledge workers, developers, funders, and institutions across the globe.
In this sense, Canada’s recognition affirms not only the individual contribution, but the shared commitment to building a better scholarly publishing system, one that others who “desire a better country” may also see reflected in this collective work.
In keeping with John’s longstanding commitment to collective thinking and shared responsibility, we wish to highlight some of the institutional partners who have carried PKP from its humble beginnings as an idea for a better publishing system to its global impact today.
Building a world where all can engage with research and scholarship for the benefit of all is neither a given nor cost-free. In the case of the Public Knowledge Project, it has taken the recognition by many organizations of the value of a sustained, deliberate investment in shared scholarly infrastructure.
Over nearly three decades, the following Canadian organizations have been sources of continuing support:
- University of Alberta
- University of British Columbia
- Simon Fraser University
- University of Toronto
- Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)
- Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL)
Internationally, PKP’s work has been strengthened by Development Partnerships with SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), representing 16 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, and beyond, alongside Germany’s National Library of Science and Technology (Technische Informationsbibliothek), and the Saxony Consortium, as well as the University of Pittsburgh.
Beyond these major contributors, more than 90 university libraries and institutions around the world, from Åbo Akademi University in Finland to Relawan Jurnal in Indonesia, have recognized the importance of investing in PKP’s free open-source software (FOSS) publishing platforms as durable public infrastructure.
These investments support not only technical development, but the long-term sustainability of equitable, community-governed scholarly publishing systems that serve readers, authors, and institutions alike.
The President and Vice Chancellor of UBC, Benoit-Antoine Bacon, is rightly proud of the University of British Columbia (UBC) as “the launching point for the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), which has made such a transformative contribution to the global movement for open access.”
If the “work has,” as President Bacon generously notes, “influenced policy, technology and academic culture worldwide, and continues to shape how knowledge is shared and accessed,” then it is to the university’s credit that in 1998, it granted John the Pacific Press endowment which he used to launch PKP. It is such acts of continuing and unheralded “investment” that permits PKP’s work to endure in serving the public good.
The recognition of achievement, reflected by membership in the Order of Canada, should serve as a commendation of those academic organizations that have the foresight to look out for the academy’s participation in building scholarly infrastructure — tools, platforms, and systems – that support the creation and sharing of research in the service of a greater public good.
As Canadians, we have a history of investing in public infrastructure, from healthcare to the postal service. Our work in the free and open source and open access movement, including support for diamond open access, results in scholarly output that is free for both readers and authors, and reflects our belief that this kind of infrastructure is a public good worthy of robust public investment.
You can sample John Willinsky’s work as a researcher on Google Scholar and as an educator and activist through these recent media appearances:
- October 8, 2025: CBC IDEAS with Nahlah Ayed “How a Translation Movement Made Western Philosophers Famous” (53 min)
- December 31, 2025: Governor General’s Press Release
- January 5, 2026: CBC’s Early Edition with Stephen Quinn (6 min)
- January 12, 2026: CBC’s IDEAS with Nahlah Ayed “Open Access and the Problem of the Internet” (53 min)
