Wellcome Trust OA announcement: BioMed Central's response

["Grace Baynes" <Grace@biomedcentral.com>]

Apologies for cross posting. Of possible interest to this list.

Kind regards

Grace Baynes
BioMed Central
_________________________


Press Release: 24 May 2005

BioMed Central applauds Wellcome's leadership on Open Access, but
emphasizes the need for immediate access to research

Publisher BioMed Central today congratulated the Wellcome Trust on its
move to require researchers receiving Wellcome funding to deposit copies
of resulting research articles in an Open Access archive. The Trust
announced its Open Access policy on 19 May.

"For too long, funders have stood by as the results of scientific and
medical research have been handed over to traditional publishers, who have
then put those research articles behind subscription barriers," said
Matthew Cockerill, Director of Operations at BioMed Central.
"Subscription-only access to research does not meet the needs of
researchers, funders, or the general public, all of whom benefit from the
widest possible access to research findings, which is what Open Access
delivers."

"Following on from the National Institutes of Health's similar initiative
in the USA, Wellcome's move shows that the funders who spend hundreds of
millions of pounds to carry out the research in the first place are no
longer prepared to see their research results remain inaccessible."

The Wellcome Trust is the UK's biggest non-governmental funder of
biomedical research with an annual spend of �400 million. The recipients
of Wellcome's funding produce almost 3500 scientific articles each year.
With such a major funding body backing Open Access, it is now expected
that other funding bodies around the world will follow suit.

Wellcome's policy specifies that articles must be made freely available
within, at most, six months of initial publication, but BioMed Central
called on researchers to go further and to make their research accessible
immediately on publication, by choosing an Open Access journal."

"Six months is a long time in science - with the rapid pace of research,
quick access to the latest results is vital. So, the best way for
researchers to meet the spirit of the Wellcome policy is to publish in
fully Open Access journals, such as those published by BioMed Central."

Publishing in any of BioMed Central's 130 Open Access journals will also
make life easier for Wellcome-funded researchers: "BioMed Central already
deposits a copy of the official final version of every research article
that it publishes with the appropriate Open Access archive. As a result,
authors publishing with BioMed Central will automatically meet the
requirements of the Wellcome policy, saving themselves the effort of
having to deposit a separate copy of their research article."

For more information, contact:
Grace Baynes Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
E-mail: press@biomedcentral.com

About BioMed Central

BioMed Central is an independent online publishing house committed to
providing open access to peer-reviewed research. This commitment is based
on the view that immediate free access to research and the ability to
freely archive and reuse published information is essential to the rapid
and efficient communication of science.

Wellcome's announcement of its policy on Open Access: 
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX025191.html

Grace Baynes
Marketing Communications Manager
BioMed Central
London W1T 4LB
T: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
F: +44 (0)20 7631 9926
http://www.biomedcentral.com/