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 López Díaz, Public Health and Planning Director, speaking on behalf of the Asturias Consejería 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. 

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Press Office Contacts:

Grace Baynes for BioMed Central
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
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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
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BioMed Central
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