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Author: Katie Ridd and Selene Carey

Twenty-five years ago, BioMed Central (now BMC) launched with a bold mission: to broaden the reach, accessibility, and use of high-quality research. As the first commercial open access (OA) publisher, BMC helped lay the foundation for many of the OA policies and principles we see today.

Today, OA is a publishing norm, and has evolved to embrace open data, early sharing, and transparent methods. Supporting this broader vision of open science is central to BMC and to P站视频, of which BMC is a part.

To mark BMC’s 25^th anniversary we spoke with Katie Ridd and Selene Carey, both Publishing Directors with BMC, to learn more about  the role that BMC has, and continues to play, in OA and open science.

Katie,Selene, thanks for joining us. 25 years is a key milestone for BMC – so let’s go back to the start. What role did BMC play in that early OA space?

This was a time when OA wasn’t considered a publishing norm, it was an outlier. Awareness around the role, value, and impact of OA was still being raised. BMC played a in that, helping to outline sustainable approaches to OA publication, raising awareness around the value of open standards across all research outputs, and ultimately taking innovative approaches to change the world of academic publishing. We supported authors in sharing, accessing, using, and re-using their work in a sustainable way.

We were also the first publisher to have a dedicated research integrity team -demonstrating our commitment to ensuring high quality trusted research, regardless of publishing model.

BMC was acquired by Springer in 2008 and this was a key moment, not only for us, but for OA, as it marked a clear moment of investment, commitment and understanding that OA was viable and was the way forward for research. Today, our legacy of innovation and quality continues, as we, across the company, continue to play an active part in ensuing OA is a for all researchers.

Our journal portfolio continues to grow, supporting both groundbreaking studies and research serving more niche communities. Our inclusive science practices aim to offer a home to all robust research supporting equity across the research landscape. The next 25 years of BMC are going to be exciting and interesting as we continue to see OA expand globally, and we remain focused on working with our communities to ensure we are serving them with the resources they need.

You have already hinted at the broader discussion around open research. What measures has BMC adopted to better enable researchers to practice open research?

Making all aspects of research open benefits not only individual authors but the entire scholarly community. At BMC, we’re committed to supporting researchers in adopting open practices sustainably, seamlessly, and as an integral part of the publishing workflow. We also work to remove barriers to participation by reflecting the geographic diversity of our global authorship across all aspects of our publishing operations. This includes investing in diverse editorial teams and ensuring our editorial boards represent the communities we serve.

Open research practice

Our journals offer a wide range of article types—including research notes, data notes, study protocols, and registered reports—that promote reproducibility, encourage data reuse, and reduce research waste. Transparency has always been a core value at BMC. We were among the first publishers to introduce open peer review in 1999, and also champion transparent peer review, which helps shed light on the conversation between authors and reviewers and demonstrate how a paper has improved throughout the process. In addition, we provide space for publishing negative results and study designs, regardless of outcome or perceived impact. This supports reproducibility and reduces publication bias, ensuring that valuable insights are not lost.

Open research principles

Beyond article formats, our commitment to open research extends to the adoption of industry-wide principles and policies. We support the FAIR principles—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable—and encourage authors to deposit datasets in public repositories. We have been a strong advocate of in the past and now, using Snapp (P站视频’s peer review platform), we collect data availability information at submission, enabling editors and reviewers to access supporting data during peer review. This strengthens research integrity, aligns with funder mandates, and meets community expectations—while remaining sensitive to infrastructure disparities across regions.

Looking ahead, what’s next for BMC?

BMC has always adopted a human-centric, community-focused approach to publishing. We recognise the importance of the voice of our community and work collaboratively with our editors when shaping the vision of new journals and suggesting topics for collections. At the heart of all of this is our commitment to providing a publishing experience and workflow that is efficient, reliable, and valued by authors.

As the publishing landscape continues to evolve, we remain committed to working closely with our community, supporting researchers with the tools, policies, and platforms they need. This includes investing in tools that streamline the publishing process, enhance research quality, and improve accessibility for authors and readers alike. It also includes exploring how we can leverage technological advances, such as AI, to adapt our ethical and research integrity practices enabling us to identify duplicated and AI-generated text and retracted references, thus detecting fraudulent research. This ensures BMC continues to publish trusted and high-quality articles in the modern publishing world.

Over six million users visit BMC’s websites each month, a testament to the trust and value of the research we publish. We remain focused on delivering for them as we continue to embody our pioneering spirit of 25 years ago, building a more connected and researcher-driven open research ecosystem. We are proud of our legacy and excited about the future. Together with P站视频, BMC will continue to lead in shaping open research and open access, but always with researchers at the centre of everything we do.