Publishing open access with Springer Nature delivers highest global usage and benefits for researchers
Publisher’s latest open access (OA) report shows the growth, impact and value of its OA portfolio and how the company is delivering greater transparency around its publishing activities
London | Berlin | New York, 6th September 2023
Authors publishing open access (OA) with Springer Nature see their work used more than if they had published with other mixed model or pure OA publishers (1).
Its second annual OA report, released today and expanded to cover its hybrid as well as fully OA journals, also highlights the role Springer Nature is playing in driving the global transition to OA.
Chief Publishing Officer, Harsh Jegadeesan, said:
“Having easy and open access to all parts of research is essential to the development of a fully open world. The report shows the benefit that publishing gold OA has for authors, and the role OA has on driving forward a more reproducible research ecosystem that impacts and accelerates solutions to the world´s pressing challenges. It is something that we at Springer Nature are firmly committed to enabling.”
Analysing publicly available data (2) on fully OA and hybrid journals across publishers (3) the report shows that:
- Springer Nature has now published over 1.25m OA articles
- Authors publishing in its fully OA portfolio benefit from the highest usage for the second year running with its fully OA articles achieving the highest cumulated citations (nearly 4 million) in 2022.
- Springer Nature authors’ work published in its hybrid OA titles is also used more than that of other publishers - data shows authors benefit from the highest total citations and highest average citation rate, 6.6.
- The number of people downloading its authors’ OA content increases year on year with data showing a 15% (hybrid) and 10% (fully OA) increase between 2021 and 2022.
- Its transformative agreements (TAs) are shown to be key to OA growth delivering 3x more OA articles in Springer hybrid titles than author choice in 2022.
- In 2022 Springer Nature became the publisher of the largest number of OA books on SDG-related topics (4), reinforcing its OA leadership in books
Carrie Webster, Vice President Open Access added:
“Open access has been an integral part of our DNA for over 20 years. We were early movers in OA transition, acquiring the first OA publisher in BMC; launching the largest OA journal, Scientific Reports; creating the first highly selective fully OA journal, Nature Communications; and signing the first TA in 2015 setting a precedent for the community. This report not only demonstrates our continued OA growth but also highlights our ongoing commitment to ensuring our authors can take advantage of the numerous benefits gold OA brings in advancing knowledge and discovery.”
Alongside the publisher’s Annual Progress Report and Sustainability Report, which also share data and strategy, this report is a key demonstration of the publisher's commitment to transparency and accountability around its publishing programme for the communities it serves.
The full report can be accessed here, alongside the fully OA report from 2022.
More information on Springer Nature’s wider commitment to OA and our full OA offerings can be found here.
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1. Mixed model refers to hybrid OA publishers and pure OA refers to fully OA publishers
2. Public sources include Digital Science, Dimensions; Clarivate’s 2021 Journal Citation Reports; and Web of Science
InCites
3. The report analysis public fully OA and hybrid OA data from mixed model and fully OA publishers
4. Over 40% of our English language OA books are related to the SDGs - source Dimensions as of Q1 2023
For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies.
As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature
Katie Baker | Communications | Springer Nature
katie.baker@springernature.com
