JMIR Publications and Swedish Consortium Bibsam Join Forces in a Landmark Agreement to Advance Open Access

(Toronto, June 6, 2024) Open access publisher JMIR Publications, in partnership with Sweden’s academic consortium Bibsam, with sales support by Accucoms, recently announced a landmark national agreement to eliminate the burden of article processing charges (APCs) for researchers in Sweden. This transformative agreement will allow researchers at Bibsam’s 95 participating institutions, including universities, public agencies, and research institutes, to publish an unlimited number of open access articles in any JMIR Publications journals at no cost to themselves.

Sweden’s national research funders—Swedish Research Council, Formas, Forte, and Vinnova—are jointly funding this program, demonstrating their strong commitment to open access initiatives. The agreement marks a significant step forward for open access publishing and advancing open science principles, benefitting both researchers in Sweden and the global scientific research community.

“Thanks to this innovative model, financial roadblocks to publication are a thing of the past for Swedish researchers. It frees them to pursue groundbreaking discoveries with renewed focus,” said Gunther Eysenbach, founder of JMIR Publications. “We believe this approach can serve as a valuable framework for institutions and funding bodies worldwide to promote a global culture of Open Science.”

Rob Turner, Accucoms Senior Sales Manager for UK, Scandinavia, and Australia, who facilitated the agreement, said, “We are thrilled to have facilitated conversations between JMIR Publications and Bibsam to reach this ground-breaking agreement which will play a key role in making scientific research in Sweden open and accessible.”

Effective through the end of 2025, this partnership not only reflects a growing demand for transparent and seamless publishing models but also actively contributes to the open access movement. By eliminating APCs for eligible authors, this initiative directly aligns with the broader push to make scientific research more accessible and equitable worldwide.

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About Bibsam Consortium

Since 1996, the National Library of Sweden has negotiated licensed agreements for electronic information resources on behalf of Swedish universities, university colleges, as well as public agencies and research institutes. Bibsam Consortium is a national consortium representing 95 institutions. More information on the consortium can be found here.

About JMIR Publications

JMIR Publications, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024, is a leading open access digital health research publisher. As a pioneer in open access publishing, JMIR Publications is committed to driving innovation in scholarly communications, advancing digital health research, and promoting open science principles. Our portfolio features 35 open access, peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the dissemination of high-quality research in the field of digital health, including the Journal of Medical Internet Research, as well as cross-disciplinary journals such as JMIR Research Protocols and the new title JMIR XR & Spatial Computing. 

About Accucoms

Accucoms is the leading provider of sales and marketing services to academic and professional publishers worldwide. We have extensive expertise in global representation for clients ranging from large publishing houses to specialist society publishers. We work on behalf of publishers to help boost their sales, expand their readership and increase customer retention and engagement in the markets that are important to them.