BioMed Central and HHMI seal open access deal

From September 1, 2007, the non-profit medical research body, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has agreed to pay all article processing charges for research published by its investigators in open access publisher, BioMed Central’s, journals.

Under this agreement, articles published will be immediately and freely available on the web in their final published form. They will also be deposited in international archives including PubMed Central (PMC). The agreement between HHMI and BioMed Central takes effect for articles submitted after September 1, 2007.

According to HHMI, this latest move backs its recent open access policy, which requires that the results of research funded by the Institute must be deposited in PubMed Central, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, not more than six months after publication.

BioMed Central publisher, Matt Cockerill, says: 'Many HHMI researchers already publish in BioMed Central's journals and this new agreement further emphasises HHMI’s commitment to making its scientists’ research results freely available to the public and the international scientific community.'