Microsoft Research Sponsors BioMed Central 2007 Research Awards

BioMed Central, the world’s largest publisher of peer-reviewed, open access research journals, is pleased to announce that Microsoft Research has agreed to be the premium sponsor of the BioMed Central Research Awards for 2007. The BioMed Central Research Awards, which began accepting nominations in late July, recognize excellence in research that has been made universally accessible by open access publication in one of the publisher’s 180 journals.

“Microsoft’s External Research group is proud to be a sponsor of the BioMed Central Research Awards and feel it is important to recognize excellence in research,” said Lee Dirks, director, scholarly communications, Microsoft Research. “We are very supportive of the open science movement and recognize that open access publication is an important component of overall scholarly communications.”

Nominations for the awards are now being accepted and will close December 21, 2007. Anyone who publishes original research of major significance in one of BioMed Central’s journals during 2007 is eligible for nomination. Two awards of $5000 (US) will be made — one for biology research, and one for medical research. The winning articles will be selected by a panel including BioMed Central editorial team members and external experts in biology and medicine. Winners will be announced at the BioMed Central Research Awards dinner in early March 2008.

“We’re very pleased that Microsoft Research has shown its commitment to advancing open science by supporting this year’s BioMed Central Research Awards,” said Dr. Matthew Cockerill, BioMed Central's publisher. “With these awards, BioMed Central aims to encourage and reward authors who select BioMed Central journals to publish their very best research.”

The first BioMed Central Research Awards were a great success. The winners were announced at the BioMed Central Open Access Colloquium in February 2007, at the Royal College of Physicians, London.

“Winning a BioMed Central Research Award last year has been a tremendous help with my research,” said Dr. Flavio Zolessi, Professor Adjunto, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay. “I used the award to purchase equipment and reagents needed for establishing, for the first time in Uruguay, a research line about zebrafish development. Additionally, I have been invited to speak in Uruguay and around South America. This was in due in part to the fact that the paper was published in a very promising open access journal.”

For more information on the BioMed Central Research Awards, please contact Robert Brumfield at robert.brumfield@fusionpr.com or 202-898-2000 ext. 109 or visit www.biomedcentral.com/researchawards.

About BioMed Central

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate access without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science. In addition to open-access original research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews and other subscription-based content.

About Microsoft Research

Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft Research employs more than 700 people in five labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science. More information can be found at http://www.research.microsoft.com.