Publication Guide
BMC (BioMed Central) is Springer Nature's fully open-access imprint - more than 300 peer-reviewed journals spanning biology, medicine, and public health. Founded in London in 2000, BMC was one of the first commercial publishers built entirely on open access, and several of its journals were the very first OA titles in their fields. Springer acquired BMC in 2008, and it now operates as one of the four main journal families within Springer Nature, alongside Nature Portfolio, Springer, and Palgrave Macmillan.
Every BMC article is published under a CC BY licence and is free to read immediately - there are no subscription journals and no paywalls anywhere in the portfolio. This guide covers how to pick the right BMC journal, what the APCs actually cost in 2026, how peer review works, and how to submit.
Which BMC journal fits your paper?
BMC journals fall into three broad tiers with different selectivity, visibility, and price points. Use the table below to choose the right route for your manuscript.
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Have a high-impact biomedical or clinical paper | BMC Medicine or BMC Biology - the selective flagship titles, with correspondingly higher APCs (~$4,490 for BMC Medicine). |
| Have a strong genomics or methods-driven paper | Genome Biology - the portfolio's highest-impact title (APC ~$5,690), highly selective in genomics and genome biology. |
| Want a solid subject-specific OA venue with sound peer review | BMC-series subject journals - BMC Genomics, BMC Public Health, BMC Cancer, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Infectious Diseases, and 200+ more. Broad scope within their fields, APCs mostly ~3,500. |
| Need to publish a data note, short report, or negative result | BMC Research Notes - publishes scientifically valid notes and data papers across disciplines, with the portfolio's lowest APC (~$1,790). |
| Want maximum journal prestige regardless of imprint | Consider the wider Springer Nature portfolio - Nature Portfolio or hybrid Springer titles - since BMC focuses on solid, fully-OA biomedical publishing rather than flagship-brand selectivity. |
What BMC actually publishes
300+ fully open-access journals, organized roughly as:
- Flagship titles - BMC Medicine, BMC Biology, and Genome Biology: selective journals publishing high-significance research in medicine, biology, and genomics.
- The BMC series - the large family of subject-specific titles (BMC Genomics, BMC Public Health, BMC Cancer, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Infectious Diseases, BMC Microbiology, and many more). These review for scientific soundness within a defined scope rather than perceived importance.
- Society and specialty titles - independent OA journals published with research societies and communities, covering clinical specialties, methods, and emerging fields.
Coverage is strongest in biomedical and life sciences, though the portfolio extends into public health, bioinformatics, and interdisciplinary areas.
Open access and APCs - actual numbers
BMC is 100% Gold open access: every article carries a CC BY licence, authors retain copyright, and immediate self-archiving is permitted. There is no subscription option and no hybrid route - the APC is the publishing model.
APCs below are 2026 list prices (USD, before tax). Springer Nature revises prices annually and is piloting country-tiered APC pricing, so always check the journal's fees page before submission.
| Title tier | APC (USD) | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Genome Biology | ~$5,690 | Genome Biology (Brief Reports lower, ~$4,280) |
| Flagship BMC titles | ~$4,490 | BMC Medicine |
| Larger BMC-series titles | ~3,500 | BMC Public Health (~$3,450), BMC Cancer, BMC Genomics |
| Standard BMC-series titles | ~3,000 | Most subject-specific BMC journals |
| BMC Research Notes | ~$1,790 | Data notes, short reports |
Three ways the fee can drop to zero or near zero:
- Institutional OA agreements - Springer Nature's transformative/Read & Publish agreements cover BMC APCs for corresponding authors at participating institutions in dozens of countries. Check the ESAC registry or your library.
- Waivers - APC waivers and discounts apply for corresponding authors in the world's lowest-income countries, with discretionary hardship waivers considered at submission (not after acceptance).
- Country-tiered pricing - Springer Nature's pricing pilot adjusts APCs by country income tier at many BMC titles, superseding standard waivers for low- and lower-middle-income economies.
Peer review process
- Default model: single-anonymized peer review across most of the portfolio.
- Open peer review: many BMC-series titles operate open peer review, publishing reviewer names and reports alongside the article - BMC helped pioneer this model in 1999-2000.
- Soundness-based review: BMC-series subject journals assess scientific validity rather than novelty or expected impact, which keeps rejection less dependent on editorial taste.
- Turnaround: typically around 2-3 months to first decision, varying by title and field; flagship titles run additional editorial selectivity.
How to submit
- Pick the journal. Use the Springer Nature Journal Suggester to match your abstract to candidate BMC titles, or browse the BMC series by subject.
- Read the submission guidelines. Each BMC journal has title-specific instructions covering article types, word limits, and reporting standards.
- Prepare your manuscript. BMC uses Vancouver-style numbered referencing; SciSpace hosts BMC templates with the correct structure and citation format.
- Submit via the Springer Nature submission platform (Snapp). Most BMC journals have migrated from Editorial Manager to Snapp at submission.springernature.com - the journal's page tells you which system it uses.
- Complete ethics declarations. Biomedical submissions need ethics approval statements, consent declarations, trial registration where applicable, and data-availability statements.
Ethics and integrity
BMC is covered by Springer Nature's memberships of COPE, OASPA, and STM, and was one of the first publishers to establish a dedicated research-integrity team. All journals follow COPE guidance on retractions and corrections, require competing-interest and data-availability statements, and apply Springer Nature's tiered research-data policy. Clinical trials must be prospectively registered in a public registry.
