BioMed Central Launches Open Access Charter

[Gordon Fletcher <Gordon@biomedcentral.com>]

Press Release:  1st July 2002
For Immediate Release

Contact: Gordon Fletcher
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7323 0323
Fax: +44 (0)20 7580 1938
E-mail: gordon@biomedcentral.com
Website:http://www.biomedcentral.com

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BioMed Central Launches Open Access Charter
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BioMed Central, the publishing company renowned for publishing open access
peer-reviewed research articles, is publicly committing itself to
maintaining an open access publishing policy through the launch of an Open
Access Charter. The charter commits BioMed Central to permanently
maintaining its open access publishing policy, retrospectively and
prospectively, in all eventualities, including any future changes in
ownership. In this charter, open access is defined as making peer-reviewed
research articles publicly accessible via the Internet without any
restrictions or payment by the user.

BioMed Central has shown that open access can be a viable business model
funded through article processing charges. The success of BioMed Central's
institutional membership program, which has attracted more than 30
institutions since January, shows that by spreading the costs of
publishing across institutions open access can be maintained. The full
list of members (http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/) currently includes
such high profile institutions as Harvard University, the US National
Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization.

The success of open access publishing depends on convincing authors it is
in their interests to publish in open access journals. The launch of the
Open Access Charter will do much to allay fears open access publishing
will be crushed by the financial muscle of conventional publishers who
might try and buy open access publishers like BioMed Central and "nip the
development of open access journals in the bud".

In the event of any change of ownership, an independent Board of Trustees
will be asked to judge and advise whether sufficient guarantees to
continue a policy of unconditional open access for research articles are
being offered by any prospective new owner. BioMed Central will not enter
into a change of ownership agreement unless the Board of Trustees accepts
these guarantees.

Jan Velterop, publisher at BioMed Central, believes that the company has
now put into place a business model that is set to materially improve the
system of scholarly communication in the life sciences and medicine.

"Following the success of our institutional membership program, which has
demonstrated a viable business model for delivering open access research,
the Charter should remove any doubt that open access publishing is here to
stay"

The Board of Trustees consists of the following members:

Brian Haynes, McMaster University
Steven Hyman, Harvard University
Marc Kirschner, Harvard Medical School
Philippe Kourilsky, Institut Pasteur
David Nathan, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Sir Paul Nurse, Cancer Research UK
Sir Richard Peto, University of Oxford
Harold Varmus, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Mitsuhiro Yanagida, Kyoto University

Any change in the composition of the Board of Trustees will be subject to
approval by a majority of the existing members of the Board of Trustees.

For further information about BioMed Central contact Gordon Fletcher,
gordon@biomedcentral.com, +44 (0) 20 0323 7323, or visit the BioMed
Central Website http://www.biomedcentral.com

To read further press releases from BioMed Central visit:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/pr-releases.asp

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online
publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to the
peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This
commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential
to the rapid and efficient communication of science. In addition to
open-access original research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews and
other subscription-based content.