Grants for Institutional Memberships to BioMed Central

A pilot fund to support publication of research from institutions in developing and transition countries.

The Information Program of the Open Society Institute (OSI) is pleased to announce a pilot project inspired by the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/). To support open access to international research and scholarship, OSI will provide funding to support 50 BioMed Central Institutional memberships for institutions in countries where the Soros foundations network is active (please see the attached list of 67 countries). BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) currently publishes 126 open access journals. The Institutional memberships will provide the following benefits to the recipient institutions:

1. The right for any of the institution’s research staff or students to automatically qualify for an article-processing charge waiver when their manuscript submitted to any of the BioMed Central journals is accepted for publication.
2. The right to list all the relevant publications generated at the institution on a special page on the BioMed Central web site, customized with the institution's name (including publications in journals not published by BioMed Central, if those are available in Open Archive Initiative (OAI) compliant format on a server at the institution).
3. The right to a 15% discount on any of the subscription products BioMed Central publishes (such as review journals and databases).
4. The Institutional membership grants will be for twelve months.

Guidelines for funding:

1. Institutions must be engaged in biomedical (biology and/or medicine) research.
2. A geographical balance will be sought in funding.

Institutions interested in applying for a grant for Institutional membership should submit the following information to Melissa Hagemann (mhagemann@sorosny.org):

• brief description of institution, including size of biomedical (biology and/or medicine) departments
• contact name at institution
• list of biomedical faculty

Selection process:

• Applications are being accepted on a rolling admissions basis.

Countries where the Soros foundations network is active:

Afghanistan Albania Angola Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Benin Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bulgaria Burma Burkina Faso Cambodia Cameroon Cape Verde Chad Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Czech Republic Estonia Gambia Georgia Ghana Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Haiti Hungary Indonesia Kazakhstan Kosovo Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lesotho Liberia Lithuania Laos

Macedonia Malawi Mali Mauritania Moldova Mongolia Montenegro Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Peru Poland Romania Russia Senegal Sierra Leone Slovakia South Africa Swaziland Tajikistan Thailand Togo Turkey Ukraine Uzbekistan Vietnam Yugoslavia Zambia Zimbabwe

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 E-mail: openaccess@soros.org.