Open access publication fees at the BMJ

"We are adopting the "author pays" model for research, but only when funders have pledged to pick up the bill....Editors and reviewers will not know whether a fee is payable: the fee will be requested only after a study is accepted, and administrative staff will handle payments and associated correspondence. Moreover, all research in the BMJ will remain openly accessible, regardless of whether a fee has been paid for its publication. The publication fee will be £2500 for each accepted research article....Some publishers with an open access option have promised to titrate journal subscription rates and site licences for institutions against revenue from authors’ fees, once that income exceeds a certain threshold. The BMJ has no plans to do this, for several reasons....Last but definitely not least, we are pleased to introduce a new sister journal to be launched this autumn, BMJ Open (www.bmjopen.bmj.com). This is an online [fee-based] open access journal that will provide rapid publication of research across all medical disciplines and therapeutic areas....All articles will be openly peer reviewed and, if accepted, will be published with reviewers’ comments and other background information. As well as publishing full research reports in the traditional way, BMJ Open will encourage transparency at all stages of the research dissemination process by publishing study protocols, pilot studies, and pre-protocols and by facilitating the sharing of raw data either as additional electronic material or through direct links to data repositories...."