[BOAI] Springer and Helmholtz Association sign agreement for open access membership

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from Renate Bayaz at Springer.  --Peter Suber.]

*PRESS RELEASE*

*Springer and Helmholtz Association sign agreement for open access
membership*

* *

*Cooperation makes open access publishing easier for scientists*

Berlin / New York / London, 23 August 2010

Following the launch of SpringerOpen (www.springeropen.com), the Helmholtz
Association has signed a new agreement for an open access membership. This
agreement covers article processing charges for authors from the
participating Helmholtz research centres for articles published in
SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journals.



SpringerOpen journals are peer-reviewed open access journals in emerging and
interdisciplinary fields that complement both the established Springer
journal portfolios and BioMed Central’s growing list of over 200 life
science and biomedicine journal titles. SpringerOpen journals are e-only and
publish articles under the Creative Commons Attribution license. According
to this license, Springer will not reserve any exclusive commercial rights.



Both SpringerOpen as well as Biomed Central journals charge article
processing fees to the author which make the journals’ content immediately
and freely available. The membership offering, introduced by BioMed Central,
allows institutions to directly support the payment of these fees and
facilitate the uptake of open access across their authors. Currently,
authors from more than 340 institutions in 39 countries benefit from these
memberships taking on full or partial payment of article processing fees.



“We feel that the Springer open access journal portfolio is a good match for
the spectrum of the six main Helmholtz research areas (Energy, Earth and
Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, and Aeronautics,
Space and Transport). We are pleased to enter into this partnership opening
new chances to develop an open access forum for research results of our
scientists. The agreement is part of our mission to establish long-term
mechanisms securing reasonable publication charges for open access
journals,” says Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier, Head of the Central Library of
Forschungszentrum Jülich.



“We are delighted to see that the Helmholtz Association expresses its
support for SpringerOpen. SpringerOpen expands the option to publish in
fully open access journals to all scientific areas and it is encouraging to
see the scientific community reacting so quickly,” says Bettina Goerner,
Manager Open Access at Springer.



The *Helmholtz Association* (www.helmholtz.de) contributes to solving major
challenges facing society, science and industry with top scientific
achievements in six research areas: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health,
Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, and Aeronautics, Space and Transport.
With 30,000 employees in 16 research centres and an annual budget of
approximately 3 billion euros, the Helmholtz Association is Germany’s
largest scientific organisation. The Helmholtz Association was one of the
initial signatories of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in 2003.

* *

*Springer Science+Business Media* (www.springer.com) is a leading global
scientific publisher, delivering quality content through innovative
information products and services. The company is also a trusted provider of
local-language professional publications in Europe, especially in Germany
and the Netherlands. In the science, technology and medicine (STM) sector,
the group publishes around 2,000 journals and more than 6,500 new books a
year, as well as the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has
operations in about 20 countries in Europe, the USA, and Asia, and more than
5,000 employees.

*BioMed Central* (www.biomedcentral.com) has been part of Springer
Science+Business Media since 2008. Founded in 1999, the STM publisher 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 the largest open access publisher in the world.


Contact: Renate Bayaz, Tel +49-6221-487-8531, renate.bayaz at springer.com
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