BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open access science publisher.

In November 2008, BioMed Central became an official supporting organisation of Healthcare Information For All.

The software migration meant the loss of several features, often related to open science requirements, like the ability to download a machine-readable version of the paper (in XML format), direct download of PDF files and the ability to read articles without cookies.

The only exceptions to this (as of 2010) were the flagship journals, which reserved rights on review and commentary content; those articles were available to purchase on a subscription or on a pay-per-view basis, becoming freely available (but not fully open access) to all after six months; however, as of January 2015, "no subscription fees apply to these journals or to any articles published in them.

"[7] In 2001, BioMed Central was the first publisher to carry out open peer review as default, by openly posting named peer reviewer reports alongside published articles as part of a 'pre-publication history' for all medical journals in the BMC series.

[8] The BMC Series is a collection of several dozen online research journals published by BioMed Central.

[9] Like all other BioMed Central journals, they have a policy of open access to the research articles they publish.