Sharing knowledge and expertise to create a healthier world
As a pioneer and strong advocate of open access, we believe in making research outputs freely available to the public without barriers. Our open access offering allows anyone to access, read, and use research findings, thereby fostering greater collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation.
Open access at BMJ Group
The research in our flagship journal, The BMJ, has always been free to read online, and in 2011 we launched our first and largest open access medical journal, BMJ Open. Today, one-third of our journals are fully open access, and we provide hybrid publication models that increase accessibility to academic research.
By promoting knowledge and accelerating discoveries in health research through open access, we enhance its reach and impact, ultimately contributing to a healthier world.
Advancing equity in open access publishing
At BMJ Group, we support authors from low and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) to publish their research open access in their journal of choice. Our waiver policy offers a full Article Processing Charge (APC) waiver — 100% discount for authors in LMICs. We also consider discount requests from other countries or for other equity reasons on a case-by-case basis and not influenced by editorial decisions.
Since 2002, BMJ Group has contributed to improving global health by participating in the WHO’s Research4Life Organization’s Access to Research Initiative (HINARI). This programme grants free access to nearly 20,000 journals and e-books to health workers and researchers in more than 100 developing countries.
A recent study by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reveals that the Research4Life initiative has directly contributed to a significant increase in scientific output. In low and middle income countries, research production in health sciences has increased by up to 75%, and clinical trial activity has risen by up to 35%.
In 2023, LMIC-originated research published open access by BMJ Group rose to 59.5%, significantly increasing the visibility of critical research from these regions.
Innovating to accelerate knowledge dissemination
In 2019, BMJ Group co-launched the first preprint server for health sciences, medRxiv, with Yale University and Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory. medRxiv allows fast sharing of preliminary research findings to the widest possible audience, fostering faster collaboration and advancement. It also highlights when preprints have been accepted or published across BMJ’s journal portfolio, further contributing to the reliability and value of preprints as part of the scientific record.
medRxiv has contributed significantly to open science by publishing 12,200 preprints in 2023 alone. This represents a 30% increase from the previous year.
Our partnership with medRxiv enables authors to directly transfer manuscripts from medRxiv to all journals within our 60+ portfolio.
We are also part of initiatives like Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) and Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA), making it easier for articles to be found, read and cited.
Broadening access to healthcare insights
In 2024, BMJ Group partnered with Research Gate, the professional network for researchers, to make seven of its open access journals available on the ResearchGate platform. This collaboration further extends the reach, visibility and access to essential healthcare research outputs to the wider medical community.
Benefits of publishing open access
