First century for 21st century publisher: BioMed Central announces the first 100 Institutions to join its Membership Program

BioMed Central celebrated a milestone today when they signed up the University of Nottingham, one of the top ten universities in the UK, as the 100th member for their Institutional Membership Program.

BioMed Central celebrated a milestone today when they signed up the University of Nottingham, one of the top ten universities in the UK, as the 100th member for their Institutional Membership Program.

January 2003 was a record month for the program - over 15 institutions joined from the USA, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Jan Velterop, Publisher at BioMed Central is delighted with the success:

"We are thrilled that academic institutions have shown this level of support for open access to scientific research. This, after all, is our core belief: free access, to anyone, in any place, at any time. The take up of the membership program demonstrates that institutions are prepared to 'walk the talk' and accept new open access publishing models as a genuine alternative to the traditional subscription-based model which restricts the dissemination of scientific research."

As well as institutions, there are indications that authors are "voting with their feet" to support open access. Paper submissions to BioMed Central's 90 online open access journals have increased steadily over the last year. January 2003 submissions were at an all-time-high and more than double the figures for the same period last year - an increase of over 140%.

BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program was launched in January 2002 and has gone from strength to strength. Ivy League schools Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and Princeton are all Institutional Members, as are the Institut Pasteur, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, University of Lund, and the World Health Organization.

About BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program

BioMed Central's Membership Program enables institutions to ensure the widest possible distribution of their peer-reviewed research articles. Article processing charges, levied for publishing in one of BioMed Central's 80 peer-reviewed journals, are waived for researchers from member institutions. The full text of all published research is immediately and freely available through the web to readers worldwide.

To find out more about BioMed Central's Institutional Membership Program, please visit our website: http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/instmembership

For further information about BioMed Central please contact Grace Baynes (grace.baynes@biomedcentral.com or +44 20 7631 2988) or Gordon Fletcher (+44 20 7323 0323). Alternatively, visit our website at http://www.biomedcentral.com/

To read further press releases from BioMed Central visit: http://www.biomedcentral.com/pressinfo