What is Chemistry Central?

Chemistry Central is an independent publishing platform operated by BioMed Central committed to providing immediate open access to peer-reviewed chemical research

All original research articles published by, or in cooperation with, Chemistry Central are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication. Chemistry Central views open access to research as essential in order to ensure the rapid and efficient communication of research findings.

Chemistry Central is committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review

All research articles published by, or in cooperation with, Chemistry Central receive rapid and thorough peer review. The detailed peer-review policy of each journal is the responsibility of the journal editor(s) concerned. Many journals operate traditional anonymous peer review.

Chemistry Central offers free access to a wide variety of journals

Journals accessible through Chemistry Central will include general titles such as the Chemistry Central Journal alongside specialist journals (e.g. Geochemical Transactions, the official journal of the Geochemistry Division of the American Chemical Society) that focus on particular disciplines. All the research published by these journals is open access.

Starting a new, open access journal with Chemistry Central

Our journal management system incorporates online tools for manuscript submission, peer review and editorial decision making. We make this technology available without charge to suitably qualified groups of researchers that wish to operate their own open access online journals [more information].

All research articles published by Chemistry Central may be freely accessed, re-used and re-distributed

Authors publishing with Chemistry Central retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the Creative Commons Attribution License. This license allows articles to be freely downloaded from the Chemistry Central website, and also allows articles to be re-used and re-distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited.

Chemistry Central supports PubMed Central and other digital repositories, and encourages self-archiving by authors

All research articles published by, or in cooperation with, Chemistry Central are archived without delay in PubMed Central and several other international archives. Chemistry Central also allows authors to immediately deposit the official, final version of their published article in any suitable digital repository. Several institutions that are research funders have introduced official policies requesting or requiring their authors to deposit the articles they publish in a central archive. Chemistry Central fully supports these deposition policies and is compliant with them.

Open access is a sustainable model for the publication of chemical research

The traditional business model for scientific publishers relies on restricting access to published research in order to recoup the costs of the publication process. This restriction of access to published research prevents full use being made of digital technologies, and is contrary to the interests of authors, funders, and the scientific community as a whole. The traditional subscription-based model is also becoming increasingly unsustainable, as increasing amounts of research are being published whilst library budgets remain static.

In contrast, BioMed Central's and Chemistry Central's open access publishing models treat publication as the last phase of the research process. Article-processing charges (APCs) cover the cost of the publication process to allow free and immediate access to the research articles. APCs ensure transparency and allow publishers to compete to provide the best service at the best price. By coupling the cost of publication with research budgets, APCs ensure that the journal publishing system can scale to cope with an ever increasing volume of research.

Chemistry Central is committed to showing that open access provides a viable alternative that better fits the needs of the scientific community.