Marianne Trevorrow,1 MA, ND
On June 1, we changed the CAND Journal’s publishing model from subscription-based to open access, removing all barriers to open science on our digital platform.
What this means for readers is that all articles published in this edition and from now on are freely available immediately under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license (CC BY-NC 4.0). This allows readers to download, share, and adapt our content for non-commercial purposes, provided proper credit is given.1
In order to prevent financial obstacles to publishing naturopathic research, we also won’t be adding publication or “processing” fees, which many journals charge authors to keep their articles outside of paywalls. This means that once their work is published in the CAND Journal, authors are free to distribute, reproduce, or archive their work (as long as they cite us as the original publisher), contributing to increased knowledge and a greater impact of naturopathic literature globally.
At the CAND Journal, this is our contribution to the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors’ (CAND’s) 2025–2028 Strategic Plan, which emphasizes collaboration with the larger healthcare community and the understanding that we are part of a science-based profession that promotes the use of research and evidence in our clinical practices, while holding space for traditional medicines and wisdom. They have provided us with the additional support to make this project happen and are continuing to underwrite this publication as they have been since our inception.
This transition also marks the end of a multi-month process of reviewing and updating our guidelines to accommodate the increasing number of research articles we receive, as well as formulating new standards for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the process of creating and documenting research. At this point in our evolution, it made sense to share the knowledge available to our members with the wider public and to contribute to the broader conversation(s) on improving access to primary health care in Canada in the 21st century.
Ellen Conte, ND, a Research Associate at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine and the Patterson Institute for Integrative Oncology Research, member of the CAND Journal Editorial Board, and frequent contributor to this journal, is our guest editor for this special edition. She will introduce our content for the edition, which is entirely focused on research in naturopathic cancer care. She also played an important behind-the-scenes role in soliciting content when we began planning this second special edition last summer.
As always, we welcome feedback about our recent changes and ask our colleagues to consider helping us grow by contributing to the CAND Journal in the future.
1Editor in Chief, CAND Journal.
Not applicable.
I have read and understood the CAND Journal’s policy on conflicts of interest and declare that I have none.
This research did not receive any funding.
1. Full license details are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Marianne Trevorrow, MA, ND, Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors, 20 Holly Street, Suite 200, Toronto, ON M4S 3B1, Canada. E-mail: drmtrevorrow@cand.ca
To cite: Trevorrow M. Introducing our new open access format. CAND Journal. 2025;32(2):1. https://doi.org/10.54434/candj.212
© Author(s) 2025. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. For commercial re-use, please contact candj@cand.ca.
Published by the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors.
CAND Journal | Volume 32, No. 2, June 2025