BioMed Central (BMC) is a United Kingdom-based, for-profit scientific

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis o ...

publisher that produces over 250

scientific journal In academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or thesis' form. The part of academic written ...

s. All its journals are published online only. BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open access science publisher. It was founded in 2000 and has been owned by Springer, now

Springer Nature Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a German-British academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal a ...

, since 2008.

History

BioMed Central was founded in 2000 as part of the Current Science Group (now Science Navigation Group, SNG), a nursery of scientific publishing companies. SNG chairman

Vitek Tracz Vitek Tracz (born 31 May 1940) is a London London is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom. The city stands on the River Thames in the south-east of England, a ...

developed the concept for the company after NIH director

Harold Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the United States The United States of America (USA), co ...

PubMed Central PubMed Central (PMC) is a free digital repository that archives open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase ...

concept for open-access publishing was scaled back. The first director of the company was

Jan Velterop Johannes (Jan) Josephus Marinus Velterop (born 18 March 1949) is a science publisher. Education Born in The Hague, Netherlands, he was originally a marine geophysics, geophysicist and became a science publisher in the mid-1970s. Career Velterop ...

Chemistry Central Chemistry Central was a academic publishing, scientific publisher specializing in Open access (publishing), open access publications in chemistry. It was established on August 22, 2006 and was operated by BioMed Central. Along with BioMed Central an ...

was established in 2006 and the

PhysMath Central PhysMath Central was an imprint of Springer Science+Business Media Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, t ...

journal imprint in 2007. In 2002, the company introduced

article processing charges An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors to make a work available open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research ...

, and these have since been the primary source of revenue. In 2007

Yale University Libraries The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University Yale University is a private Ivy League The Ivy League (also known as The Ancient Eight) is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private ...

stopped subsidizing BioMed Central article processing charges for Yale researchers. In October 2008, it was announced that BioMed Central (along with Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central) had been acquired by

Springer Science+Business Media Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 i ...

, the second largest STM publisher. The Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central brands have since been retired. In November 2008, BioMed Central became an official supporting organisation of

Healthcare Information For All Healthcare Information For All (HIFA) is a global campaign and community of practice of health professionals, publishers, librarians, technologists, researchers, and policymakers. Formerly known as HIFA2015 (Healthcare Information For All by 2015) ...

Journals

BioMed Central's flagship journals include ''

BMC Biology ''BMC Biology'' is an online Open access (publishing), open access scientific journal that publishes original, peer-reviewed research in all fields of biology, together with opinion and comment articles. The publication was established in 2003. The ...

'', '' BMC Medicine'', ''

Genome Biology ''Genome Biology'' is a peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession w ...

'' and ''

Genome Medicine ''Genome Medicine'' is a peer-reviewed open-access medical journal with a focus on medical genetics. It was established in 2009 as a companion journal to ''Genome Biology'' and is published continuously by BioMed Central. The editor-in-chief is Rabi ...

''. It also produces the BMC Series of journals covering the fields of biology and medicine. Most of the other journals published by BioMed Central are owned and produced independently by societies and academic editorial boards, with BioMed Central providing the hosting, publishing platform and marketing. All journals are published online; some of the flagship journals have in the past also been available as print subscriptions, such as ''

Arthritis Research & Therapy ''Arthritis Research & Therapy'', formerly ''Arthritis Research'', is a peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self ...

''. Publications in BioMed Central journals are, immediately upon publication, released under the

Creative Commons "Attribution" license

which grants permission to reuse publications and produce derivative work. The only exceptions to this (as of 2010) were the flagship journals, which reserved rights on review and commentary content; those articles were available to purchase on a subscription or on a

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of or service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a platform using their , an automated telephone system, or through a live . There has been ...

basis, becoming freely available (but not fully

) to all after six months; however, as of January 2015, "no subscription fees apply to these journals or to any articles published in them."

Open peer review

In 2001, BioMed Central was the first publisher to carry out

open peer review Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review Scholarly peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or idea In philosophy ...

as default, by openly posting named peer reviewer reports alongside published articles as part of a ‘pre-publication history’ for all medical journals in the BMC series. With currently 70 BMC journals operating fully open peer review.

BMC Series

The BMC Series is a collection of several dozen online research journals published by BioMed Central. Like all other BioMed Central journals, they have a policy of open access to the research articles they publish. Between them, they cover all major subject areas within biology and medicine. Two of the journals, ''

'' and '' BMC Medicine'', have a broad scope, and aim to publish particularly significant research. A third journal, ''BMC Research Notes'', publishes scientifically valid research outputs that cannot be considered as full research or methodology articles across all scientific and clinical disciplines, while ''BMC Proceedings'' publishes conference proceedings. The other journals specialise on a particular subject area. Due to their free licensing, images from BMC journals can be reused in other places. Most BMC Series journals have an

impact factor #REDIRECT Impact factor #REDIRECT Impact factor#REDIRECT Impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly average number of citat ...

. As of 2016, for the 53 journals with impact factors, ''BMC Biology'' had the highest at 7.98.

Databases

The company also has hosted biomedical databases, including Current Controlled Trials, a database of

clinical trials Clinical trials are experiments or observations done in clinical research Clinical research is a branch of healthcare science The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to health sciences: Health sciences &nda ...

. The Biology Image Library and the Cases Database, a database of medical

case report In medicine Medicine is the science Science () is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts ( descriptive knowledge), sk ...

s, were closed in 2014. The company also provided hosting for institutional repositories of publications based on the

DSpace DSpace is an open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source mode ...

platform under the brand Open Repository. The Open Repository activity was sold to Atmire in 2016.

References

External links

*
Science Navigation Group

by

Peter Suber Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is a philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly ...

Vitek Tracz, founder of open access publisher BioMed Central, talks to Richard Poynder
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biomed Central Academic publishing companies Companies based in the London Borough of Camden Digital media publishers of the United Kingdom Open access publishers Publishing companies established in 2000 Springer Science+Business Media imprints