Press release: Spain embraces Open Access with BioMed Central membership

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

Apologies for cross posting - we hope this will be of interest to the
readers of this list,

Press Release: 3 June 2005

Spain embraces Open Access with BioMed Central membership

Spain has taken huge strides in supporting Open Access publishing, with
over 67 universities, hospitals and research institutions becoming BioMed
Central members in recent months. The membership agreements cover the cost
of publication, in BioMed Central's 130+ Open Access journals, for all
researchers, teachers and students at member institutions. On acceptance,
articles will be immediately and freely available online to all, in
accordance with BioMed Central's Open Access policy.

BioMed Central has recently formalised agreements with four regional
health authorities in Spain: Aragon, Madrid, Galicia and Asturias. Madrid,
the most recent health authority to come on board, agreed membership for
two years for 22 institutions, thanks to the Consejeria de Sanidad y
Consumo de Madrid / Agencia Pedro Lain Entralgo.

In Aragon, Instituto Aragones de Ciencias de la Salud agreed membership
with BioMed Central for all five hospitals in the health authority. In
Galacia, eight hospitals became members via Servicio Galego de Saude,
while the universities of Galicia are also members through the BUGalicia
Consortium.

Asturias was the first Health Authority to take out BioMed Central
membership, for all eight hospitals, announced in September 2004. Dr Angel
J L�pez D�az, Public Health and Planning Director, speaking on behalf of
the Asturias Consejer�a de Salud y Servicios Sanitarios, explained why the
decision was taken to become a BioMed Central member,

"The Public Health System of Asturias is developing a health information
strategy, one of the main aims of which is to provide our health
professionals with fast, efficient, straightforward, value for money
access to the best sources of health information. BioMed Central is an
initiative which breaks the mould within the world of biomedical
publishing by transferring the costs from the consumer, to the producer of
the information. But above all, in our opinion BioMed Central offers a
high quality publishing product and an editorial process which is
extraordinarily transparent. We believe that BioMed Central has a very
promising future and we hope that the health professionals of Asturias
will incorporate BioMed Central into their work, which in turn will
benefit the health of all Asturians".

In addition, the Spanish Research Council has taken out membership for all
13 of its biomedical institutions countrywide.

BioMed Central, the largest Open Access publisher, has seen its membership
program go from strength to strength since its launch in January 2002.
Denmark, Norway and Finland all have national memberships with BioMed
Central. The NHS in England and all UK universities are also members, as
are 50 institutions in Italy, 45 in Germany and all three of the major
research organisations in France. Support for Open Access publishing is
not limited to Europe however, as BioMed Central has over 150 members in
the United States, 25 in Canada, 18 in Australia and many others around
the world. BioMed Central now has 535 member institutions in 38 countries.

# # #

Press Office Contacts:

Grace Baynes for BioMed Central
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
E-mail: press@biomedcentral.com

About BioMed Central

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online
publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge 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. BioMed Central's business model is based
on charging authors to publish, and then making the content free to
readers. Under membership agreements, authors from member institutions
will not be asked to pay an article processing charge when publishing
research. The charge is instead covered by the institution's BioMed
Central membership. This applies to all of BioMed Central's 130
peer-reviewed journals. Upon acceptance, the article becomes available
online without charge to readers worldwide.

BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program was launched in January
2002 and now has well over 500 members, including some of the world's most
prestigious academic institutions. A full list of BioMed Central members
is available by country at http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/

Grace Baynes
Marketing Communications Manager
BioMed Central
Middlesex House
34-42 Cleveland Street
London W1T 4LB
T: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
F: +44 (0)20 7631 9926
http://www.biomedcentral.com/