New Transformative Agreement between Springer Nature and OASE (Open Access for Scholarly Empowerment) will further promote open access (OA) in Japan
Latest open access agreement in Japan starting from 2026 means researchers from approximately 80 participating institutions will be supported in publishing open access in over 2,000 Springer Nature journals.
London | Tokyo, December 4, 2025
Springer Nature and OASE (Open Access for Scholarly Empowerment) have signed a new Transformative Agreement (TA) with the common goal of further promoting open access (OA) in Japan. This agreement will run from 2026 to 2028 and will enable universities and national research and development organisations, which have expressed an interest in participating in OASE’s TA framework, to have the option to fully or partially transform to publish OA. Currently, 83 institutions have signed up to participate from 2026.
It is expected that the agreement will enable researchers affiliated with the participating institutions in Japan to publish OA around 3,000 articles in over 2,000 of Springer hybrid journals in 2026. In addition, access will also be provided to the Springer Journal Package (containing approximately 2,200 journals), as well as to journals from Palgrave Macmillan, Adis, and Academic Journals on nature.com that the institution has subscription to.
Representing OASE, Professor Noriko Ohsumi of Tohoku University said:
"Established under Japan’s ‘National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data’, OASE has been working to strengthen high-level commitment from university and research institute leadership to promote broader dissemination of research. Thanks to strong interest from a wide range of institutions, we engaged in constructive discussions with Springer Nature, building on the outcomes of the pilot transformative agreement launched in 2023. We recognize that there should be multiple pathways to advance OA. We hope this agreement will serve as a practical step toward more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable open publishing. We will continue to assess its impact and share insights and lessons learned with the community."
Antoine Bocquet, Vice President Sales Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania, and Managing Director of Springer Nature Japan, said:
“We are pleased to reach an agreement with OASE to support Japan’s transition to open access, enabling researchers to fully realise the benefits of OA—including increased visibility, citations, and public engagement of their research. In 2024, more than 50% of our primary research was published OA, with TAs enabling 10 times more gold OA articles than those published outside of a TA. This latest agreement will replace and expand our already successful pilot TA with the Research University Consortium (RUC) and J-SPRINTA in Japan.”
“Latest data from our TAs in Japan shows that among institutions participating in the TA, the number of OA journal articles published in the first year of participation increased by approximately four times overall compared to the year prior to participation*1. In addition, on average, OA articles are downloaded over 4.4 times and their Altmetric attention scores are approximately 10.7 times higher compared to non-OA articles, according to our latest data. We are grateful that we were able to collaborate with OASE for sharing our goals in promoting open access, tailored to the needs of researchers in Japan. By making research achievements openly available, we believe we can collectively accelerate solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.”
*1 Calculated by comparing the total number of papers published via OA in hybrid journals covered by OA publishing under the transition agreement at 38 institutions participating in the agreement from 2023 or 2024, between the year prior to participation and the first year of participation.
Springer Nature first launched its first transformative agreements (TAs) in Japan through a pilot TA with the Research University Consortium (RUC) as a three-year agreement from 2023 to 2025. Ten RUC member institutions participated in the first year of this TA, expanding to 24 institutions by 2025. Furthermore, in 2024, we launched a new transformative agreement model, J-SPRINTA (Japan Springer Research Institute Transformative Agreement)*2, for institutions other than RUC, also as a three-year agreement running until 2026. By 2025, the total number of participating institutions in TAs in Japan reached 60. These TAs aim to support Japan’s transition to open access publishing, with over 2,400 OA articles expected to be published in 2025. The new agreement with OASE will be a continuation of the current RUC Pilot TA, which is expected to finish at the end of 2025.
Starting from 2026, the new TA with OASE will allow institutions to transition at a speed suitable for their institution by offering the opportunity to fully or partially transform their research output to OA. For institutions that have chosen the full transition model, it will see almost all papers published by their affiliated researchers as corresponding authors in eligible journals in Gold OA, meaning they will be immediately available for all to use and reuse from the point of publication. Institutions that have reached an agreement to partially transition and will see over 50% of papers (number of papers is calculated based on publication output in the previous year) from their authors published OA.
The participating institutions of the current TAs can be viewed from here.
Related link: Open access agreements for Japan
Japanese page: https://www.springernature.com/jp/open-research/oa-agreements/japan
*2 J-SPRINTA (Japan Springer Research Institute Transformative Agreement) is a three-year agreement running from 2024 to 2026, available to institutions outside of the RUC, which are expected to publish more than five articles a year, regardless of whether they subscribe to the Springer Journal Package. Under this agreement, researchers affiliated with participating institutions can receive support with OA publication costs in Springer Nature’s hybrid journals. Additionally, access to the Springer Journal Package is available at a relatively low additional cost. Institutions currently participating in J-SPRINTA may transition to a new transformative agreement with OASE starting in 2026.
For more information about data on Springer Nature’s OA and transformative agreements, please visit our 2024 OA report.
Open Access for Scholarly Empowerment (OASE) is a team established in 2024 with support for establishing a collective bargaining system of universities from the government in Japan. Its goal is to realise the ‘National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data’ by negotiating with global academic publishers. For more information, please visit: https://oase.jp/en/
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Ayako Miyazaki | Corporate Affairs | Springer Nature
