13 May 2020
20 years ago BMC launched as the first commercial open access publisher. Since then, it has pioneered a sustainable approach to OA and developed policies for open research.
Over its 20 years, BMC:
- developed a sustainable business model for OA, through the introduction of the ‘OA charge’, now commonly known as an article processing charge (APC), an approach that enabled OA to be seen as a scalable option
- introduced a fair and transparent approach to peer review, with open peer review practices
- developed robust policies on data sharing, reuse and text mining which have since influenced wider industry guidelines
Meredith LeMasurier, VP Editorial, Nature Research and BMC Community Journals, said, “Twenty years ago, the world of scientific publishing was very different. OA was in its infancy and questions still remained around its viability as a sustainable publishing model. BMC harnessed emerging digital technologies to meet the needs of our community and the sustainable OA model that BMC pioneered (gold OA) soon became the industry standard for OA publishing. We have now enabled researchers to publish more than 316,000 OA articles, across 316 journals, accumulating more than 5 million citations and over 1.2 billion downloads.
For us, this community led, progressive approach remains at the centre of our publishing ethos, and we're continuing to create and evolve new ways to support authors and enable high quality scientific research to be available to everyone. We are very proud of our 20-year legacy, and know that we wouldn’t be here without those that have helped make BMC what it is today. We look forward to our next 20 years, and beyond, and our continued focus on supporting and driving the future of open research.”