About Québec Science

Québec Science

Overview

Québec Science is Quebec's French-language popular-science magazine, published in Montreal by Vélo Québec Éditions eight times a year and sold on newsstands and by subscription across the province. In its publisher's description, the magazine is a key link between the research community and the general public: it covers all aspects of science and technology and offers a scientific perspective on the major issues of the day, from health and the environment to physics, archaeology and space.

The magazine is written in French for a general readership rather than for specialists. Its formula combines long-form feature journalism by science writers with reporting drawn directly from Quebec's universities and research centres, and it has made a specialty of championing home-grown research. Its best-known franchise is the annual 10 Discoveries of the Year, in which a jury of researchers and science journalists selects the ten most significant Quebec discoveries of the year and readers then vote for a People's Choice winner.

Québec Science is an unusual property in Canadian magazine publishing: since 2008 it has belonged to Vélo Québec, the non-profit organization founded in 1967 to develop cycling culture in Quebec, which publishes the magazine through its Vélo Québec Éditions arm alongside its cycling titles and guides. The magazine receives financial support from Quebec's Ministère de l'Économie, de l'Innovation et de l'Énergie and from Canadian Heritage, as its publisher's releases record.

History

Québec Science dates its founding to 1962, the dating used in the publisher's own materials — the magazine celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2022, marking the occasion by digging into its archives for highlights from six decades of science journalism. For most of that history the magazine served as the principal French-language science magazine in Quebec, a bridge between the province's laboratories and its readers, and its publisher notes that the magazine and its contributors have won a number of prizes and distinctions over the years.

The modern chapter of the magazine's history began in 2008, when Vélo Québec acquired Québec Science — the acquisition is recorded in Vélo Québec's own published history, in the same period in which the organization launched the magazine Nature Sauvage (sold in 2011). Under Vélo Québec Éditions the title settled into its current rhythm of eight issues a year, distributed on newsstands and by subscription, with a growing digital operation around the print magazine.

The Discoveries of the Year franchise predates the Vélo Québec era. The Janvier–Février 2022 issue presented the 29th edition of the annual selection of major breakthroughs by Quebec scientists, which places the first edition in 1993; the magazine has run the contest every year since, building it into a fixture of the Quebec research calendar, covered each January by the province's universities as their researchers are named to the list.

Editorial leadership in the recent period is documented in the publisher's announcements. In January 2022 Vélo Québec announced the appointment of Mélissa Guillemette as editor-in-chief of Québec Science. By 2025 the editor-in-chief quoted in the magazine's Discovery of the Year announcements was Marine Corniou, who commented publicly on the 2024 People's Choice result announced in March 2025.

The magazine's current operation is directly verifiable in 2026. Vélo Québec's own news pages record that Québec Science unveiled its 10 Discoveries of 2025 on 8 January 2026 — the 33rd edition of the contest — and announced the People's Choice winner on 9 April 2026; the publisher's magazine pages list a March 2026 issue and an April–May 2026 issue of the magazine.

Content and Coverage

Québec Science covers the whole of science and technology for lay readers, taking, in its publisher's words, a scientific look at the major issues of the day. Feature subjects drawn from recent issues illustrate the range: a summer archaeology special drawing on genomics and ancient molecules to revisit the Vikings, the Neanderthals, the Dorset people and Angkor; the neutrino enigma and the question of why matter exists; the disappearance of insects; deprescribing medication in primary care; and the physics of Jupiter's stripes. Recurring elements include the Cabinet of Curiosities, a natural-history column that has profiled subjects from fine stones hidden in Quebec soils to the small boreal owl, and interviews with working researchers.

The 10 Discoveries of the Year is the magazine's signature editorial event. A jury of researchers and science journalists selects the ten discoveries; the selection is published in the magazine and online each January, and readers vote for the People's Choice award. More than 2,000 people voted in the 2024 edition, according to the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), whose team led by Professor François Légaré won that year's People's Choice for producing electron beams in ambient air with an ultrashort laser — a step toward simpler FLASH radiotherapy for cancer. Universities across Quebec, including McGill and Université Laval, publicly mark their researchers' inclusion in the annual list, and the magazine's selection criteria, as described by Polytechnique Montréal, are scientific rigour, originality, diversity, novelty and utility of the research.

In 2026 the cycle continued on schedule: the 33rd edition, covering the discoveries of 2025, was unveiled in the magazine's new issue in January 2026, and the public vote concluded with the People's Choice announcement in April 2026.

Audience and Reach

Québec Science addresses the francophone general public in Quebec — readers with an interest in science rather than a professional stake in it — together with the province's research community, which follows the magazine as a showcase for Quebec work. It is distributed through two channels documented by its publisher: newsstand sales across Quebec, priced at $8.95 an issue in the publisher's 2025 release boilerplate, and subscriptions in print, digital and combined forms. No audited circulation figure for the magazine is published in the sources consulted for this profile, and none is asserted here.

The measurable public footprint in the record is the engagement around the Discoveries contest: more than 2,000 readers voted in the 2024 People's Choice ballot, reported by INRS in March 2025, and the annual list is routinely covered by university news services across the province and beyond, extending the magazine's reach into the broader Canadian science-communication ecosystem.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is quebecscience.qc.ca, where its articles, the Discoveries of the Year selection and the public vote are hosted; the publisher has run web campaigns such as "L'heure est à la science" to drive readers to the site and its social platforms and to promote subscriptions. A Québec Science mobile app, published by Vélo Québec Édition, gives subscribers the digital edition on phones and tablets — the Google Play listing for the app, which describes the magazine as founded in 1962 and published by Vélo Québec Éditions, was updated in October 2025, and the print subscription includes digital activation using the subscriber's Vélo Québec account. The magazine also maintains the social-media presence promoted through its publisher's campaigns.

One production note for this profile: the magazine's own domain could not be fetched by the research tools used here, so the current-state details above rest on the publisher Vélo Québec's own site and releases and on third-party institutional sources, all of which corroborate an active 2026 publishing operation.

Ownership and Organisation

Québec Science is published by Vélo Québec Éditions, the publishing arm of Vélo Québec. Vélo Québec is a non-profit organization founded in 1967 whose mission is to develop cycling culture for everyone, everywhere in Quebec; it runs cycling events, the Route verte network promotion, training and advocacy programmes, and a publishing programme of magazines, books, guides and maps that includes Vélo Mag and Québec Science. Vélo Québec acquired Québec Science in 2008, as recorded in the organization's own history. The magazine's publishing entity is named in its app listing as Vélo Québec Édition Inc., of 1251 rue Rachel Est, Montreal.

The magazine receives financial support from the Ministère de l'Économie, de l'Innovation et de l'Énergie du Québec and from Canadian Heritage, as stated in the publisher's release boilerplate. Within Vélo Québec, the presidency has been held in the recent period by Jean-François Rheault, named as president and CEO in the publisher's January 2022 appointment announcement for editor-in-chief Mélissa Guillemette. Day-to-day editorial direction of the magazine passed from Guillemette, appointed in 2022, to Marine Corniou, who was speaking as editor-in-chief in the magazine's 2025 announcements.

Contact and Availability

Québec Science is published eight times a year by Vélo Québec Éditions and is available on newsstands in Quebec — priced at $8.95 per issue in the publisher's 2025 boilerplate — and by subscription in print and digital editions through Vélo Québec. The magazine's website is quebecscience.qc.ca. The publisher's listing for its digital edition gives Vélo Québec Édition Inc., 1251 rue Rachel Est, Montréal, QC H2J 2J9, telephone +1 514-942-0743, with client service at serviceclient@velo.qc.ca and app support at supportapp@velo.qc.ca — details published by the publisher in its own app listing and reproduced here in the body of the profile only. The public business email field for this listing is intentionally left blank.