BioMed Central news release
Monday, 12 October 2009



National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds Supporter Membership
of BioMed Central


The NIHR has a mission to support outstanding health research and to
enhance access to the results of that research. The NIHR has agreed a
membership arrangement with BioMed Central to support publication of
research articles in the publisher's open access journals.


Under the terms of the NIHR's Supporter Membership arrangement, all NHS
researchers supported by the NIHR and its partners will benefit from a
15% discount on publication fees when publishing in any of BioMed
Central's 200 peer-reviewed open access journals.  Researchers are
expected to acknowledge NIHR support.

The NIHR is part of the Department of Health, which is a strong advocate
of access to the results of research and a partner in the UK PubMed
Central open access digital archive project. In 2007 it made a statement
confirming official policy in support of open access.
http://www.nihr.ac.uk/files/pdfs/OpenAccessPolicyStatement.pdf 

With support through the NIHR, researchers already publish hundreds of
open access articles each year in BioMed Central's journals, and
Supporter Membership will further encourage open access publication,
increasing public access to the results of taxpayer funded research
whilst saving money.

A list of open access articles by NIHR-funded researchers recently
published in BioMed Central journals can be found on the institution's
BioMed Central Member Page: http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/37456

Matthew Cockerill, BioMed Central's Managing Director, noted "We have
found that health researchers working within the NHS, funded by the
NIHR, are passionate about sharing the results of their research widely
and openly, and this new membership agreement makes it even easier for
them to do so."


-ENDS-


Media Contact
Matt McKay
Head of Public Relations
BioMed Central

Tel:  +44 (0) 203 192 2216
Mob: +44 (0) 7825 257 423
Email: [log in to unmask]


Notes to Editors:

1. BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com) is an STM (Science, Technology
and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing
model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central
are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to
allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer
Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.