Call for Submission

Bioline International (BI http://www.bioline.org.br ) is pleased to announce the receipt of a grant of US$30,000 from the Open Society Institute’s Open Access Project. The grant will support the incorporation of ten additional bioscience and health journals published in developing countries into the BI system.
It is now well recognized that scientific publishers from developing countries have difficulties raising the visibility of their journal publications, due to various financial and technical constraints. However, publishers increasingly understand the great value of open access as a way to incorporate local research into the mainstream knowledge base. Already, over 40 peer-reviewed journals are collaborating with BI, and for many publications, document downloads have increased by ten-fold as a result. In addition, one of the journals on the system reports a substantial increase in submission rates and a three-fold increase in citation impact over a three year period. Several publishers also report that the number of international authors submitting manuscripts to their journals has been steadily increasing, indicating that researchers now recognize and value the increased visibility and impact provided by open access.

Journals publishers interested in providing open access to their publications should make contact with BI and submit the attached form, giving information about their journal(s).

The applications will be considered by a panel consisting of members from Bioline International and OSI.

BI is a South/North (Brazil, Canada) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the transformation of essential research information to OAI compliant format and providing an Internet platform for the free and open distribution of information that currently is largely “invisible” to the international scientific community. BI does not charge for the document conversion/distribution services, but the methodology of formatting from existing technologies is gradually transferred to the publishers to increase their technical capability and develop a sustainable and independent service for the future.

OSI's Open Access Project (http://www.soros.org/openaccess) builds upon the principles outlined in the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and aims to assist the international effort to make research articles in all academic fields freely available online. To achieve open access, the BOAI recommends two complementary strategies: the development of institutional repositories and open access journals.

BI is very grateful to OSI for its support in this work and values its continuing promotion of open access and the impact it makes on the progress of science internationally. Through open access, the contribution to the advancement of science by the academic communities of developing countries will play an increasingly important global role.