Following the launch of the series of Open Access journals SpringerOpen, the Helmholtz Association has signed an agreement for Open Access membership with Springer Science+Business Media. Under the agreement, the individual Helmholtz research centres will pay the article processing charges for papers published by their authors in SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journals.
A press release issued by the publishers quotes Dr Bernhard Mittermaier, head of the Central Library at Forschungszentrum Jülich, as saying: "The agreement is part of our mission to establish long-lasting mechanisms securing reasonable publication charges for open access journals."
Click here for more information on the Helmholtz Association's Open Access activities, and here for more information on SpringerOpen.