BioMed Central Blog
Journal of Angiogenesis Research publishes first articles
The first articles published in Journal of Angiogenesis Research
today cover a wide range of angiogenesis related topics, reflecting the
journal’s aim of providing a pivotal platform for researchers in 
this area. Dr Meadows and colleagues examine the role of Akt signalling factors in
early embryonic heart development, while Professor Mross and colleagues
assess the cancer drug
vandetanib on tumor vasculature in colorectal and liver cancer patients,
and Professor Ribatti provides an overview on the role of William Harvey in
the circulation of blood.
Angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels, is a key process occurring in the progression of diseases such as cancer, diabetic retinopathies, age-related macular degeneration and atherosclerosis. The rapid dissemination and implementation of advances in the field of angiogenesis will impact significantly on the understanding and treatment of these diseases. “For these reasons and due to the continual expansion of this area of biomedical research, we are proud to announce the launch of Journal of Angiogenesis Research.” say Editors-in-Chief, Mark Slevin, Yihai Cao and Jan Kitajewski.
If you are interested in this area of research, please visit the journal homepage and if you would like to receive regular emails detailing the most recently published articles then please sign up for article alerts.
Posted by Anne Braae at 10:55 Comments (0)
Five US universities to provide central funding for open access publication fees
In a major step forward for the open access movement, on September 15th 2009, Berkeley, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced a joint commitment to provide their researchers with central financial assistance to cover open access publication fees, and encouraged other academic institutions to join them. The aim of the Compact for Open Access Publication Equity (COPE) is to create a level playing field between subscription-based journals (which institutions support centrally via library budgets) and open access journals (which often depend on publication fees).
The Compact commits each university "the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds".
BioMed Central has long noted the asymmetry between the central support given by institutions to subscription journals via library budgets, in contrast to the relative lack of such central support for open access publishing models at most academic institutions, even where those institutions have strong policies in favour of increasing access to scholarly research.
Central institutional open access funds are a natural approach to dealing with this problem, but the practical challenges involved in reshaping the flow of funds that support scholarly communication should not be underestimated, especially given the challenging economic circumstances. This makes the achievement of Harvard and its partners in realizing the Open Access Compact all the more impressive.
The two-pronged approach pioneered by Harvard - mandating deposit of faculty publications into the university's Open Access repository while also providing explicit support for fully open publishing models - looks set to be an extremely influential model and has the potential to dramatically accelerate the already rapid growth of open access journals.
Three of the five institutions listed as signatories of the Compact already have open access funds in place:
- Berkeley fund (launched January 2008)
- Cornell fund (launched September 2009)
- Harvard fund (launched September 2009)
Dartmouth and MIT have yet to announce what form their own funding arrangements for open access publishing will take, but are commited, via the Compact, to putting such funding in place in a timely manner.
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 04:01 Comments (1)