Transferring an existing journal to BioMed Central

The experience gained from publishing a diverse and growing portfolio of now 205 journals makes BioMed Central the ideal partner for journals published on behalf of scientific societies, professional groups and institutions. BioMed Central offers cutting-edge technology, including sophisticated online tools for Editors, in combination with a financial model that can be customised to the specific needs of individual societies and their journals.

Several society journals have already transferred to BioMed Central, and more are in the process of doing so. Recent examples include Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (previously published by Taylor & Francis), Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, and Asia Pacific Family Medicine.

"The possibility to publish colour images at no extra cost, and embed movies, is a great advantage in a field that, by definition, relies heavily on high-quality image reproduction."

Dudley Pennell, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Transferring journals to BioMed Central and, in the course, converting to open access is cost and hassle free. There is no interruption to the journals' existing coverage by indexing and bibliometric services, including impact factor tracking. High visibility and the citation advantage that comes with open access can give a further boost to a journal's reputation and ranking.

"Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica moved to BioMed Central in 2006, along with its impact factor. As an effect of the much improved visibility of the journal's content we have since seen a significant rise in submissions, often from countries where researchers would not have considered publishing with us in the past."

Mats Forsberg, Editor-in-Chief

Depending on the copyright applicable, transferring journals have the additional option of making their back content accessible from BioMed Central's site, and to further increase the visibility of the journal and its older content we will also submit the back content for inclusion in PubMed Central and PubMed, as well as to other archives and repositories. An example are the articles published in Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica between 2000 and when the journal started publishing with BioMed Central in spring 2006.

In our experience, the demand for print editions of journals has been falling steadily but societies may find a print version for members desirable. We are happy to discuss this option as a print edition can easily be produced from our print-ready article PDFs.

"The Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition was self-published by the Society before we moved to BioMed Central in the spring of 2007; since then we have seen both the quantity and the quality of submissions going up nicely. Also, later in 2007 BioMed Central converted our journal's back archive so that older articles were retrospectively added to PubMed Central."

Richard Kreider, Editor-in-Chief

To obtain further information, please contact us with your enquiries. Because of notice periods for current contracts it is advisable to start the discussion, both with us and among Editorial Board and Society members, well ahead of expiry dates and any meetings where the journal's future could be discussed.

Here you can find more information about our independent journals. If you would like to make a proposal to convert an existing journal to open access, please see "What to include in a transfer proposal".