Onwards and upwards: European Journal of Medical Research continues as an open access publication

As of today, at the outset of its 17th volume, the European Journal of Medical Research is an open access publication, having joined BioMed Central's portfolio of journals. The change in the publishing model awards this well-established title with an opportunity to develop into a leading general medicine journal over the coming years.Founded by the Munich-based publishing house Holzapfel Verlag in 1995, the journal soon became a respected and broadly indexed resource. Until the end of 2011, however, the journal remained a print-only publication. While many other aspects of the journal will continue without change, the publishing 'format' is now changing, from print-only to online-only and from subscription-based economics to the open access model with article processing charges borne, after peer review and upon acceptance, by authors' home institutions or research funders. The rapid growth of high-quality open access publications is rooted in the fact that an increasing number of universities, funding agencies and governmental agencies support or even mandate open access, in different ways and through different means.The journal's new publisher, BioMed Central (Springer's imprint for open access journals in biology and medical disciplines) has over recent years accumulated a wealth of experience with journal transfers and conversions to open access. A rapidly growing number of journals in BioMed Central's portfolio moved there from other publishing arrangements. In such cases, a clear trend has emerged that shows an increase of these journals' impact factors after two to three years when the open access articles start forming the basis of the calculations. Higher visibility and unrestricted access lead to increased impact [1], of which the impact factor is only one aspect. Taken as a proxy, however, it serves as an indicator of the effect of open access on visibility and usage. Cases in point are Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, which has seen its impact factor quadru