Denmark makes national Open Access commitment

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 13 Nov 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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Denmark has made a nationwide commitment to Open Access for the biomedical research it funds. All universities, hospitals and other research institutes in Denmark became BioMed Central members in October. The membership agreement covers the cost of publication, in BioMed Central's 120 Open Access journals, for all publicly funded researchers and teachers in Denmark.

BioMed Central agreed the membership with the Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEF) - a co-operation between the Danish research libraries under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Development and the Ministry of Culture.

Bo Öhrström, DEF co-ordinator and deputy director of the Danish National Library Authority, explained why DEF took the decision, "Open Access publications help disseminate research but also represent a completely new development in journal publishing. A national agreement like this benefits all scholars and research institutions in Denmark, including smaller research projects in growth areas."

Natasha Robshaw, Head of Marketing and Sales at BioMed Central, said: "We applaud Denmark's Electronic Research Library for making this important step, and are really excited that three of the four Scandinavian countries have now become BioMed Central members. This will have a huge effect on awareness of Open Access, and its many benefits, in this part of Europe. We hope that Sweden will join its neighbors making a national commitment to Open Access. Sweden has been an early proponent of Open Access- Lund University was the first institution to become a BioMed Central member."

Scandinavia is now leading the world in its commitment to Open Access. Denmark's decision follows an announcement last month that Norway has agreed a national membership with BioMed Central. In May 2004, Finland became the first entire country to sign up for BioMed Central membership for all of its 25000 publicly funded researchers.

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

Anna Rasch for DEF
E-mail: ara@bs.dk

About Denmark's Electronic Research Library

For more information about Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEF) see http://www.deflink.dk The main aim of DEF is to support Danish research and education by strengthening the development of the Danish research libraries and creating a coherent and simple access to the information resources of these libraries.

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 120 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 over 450 members, including some of the world's most prestigious academic institutions.