Publisher announces fourth transformative agreement for its flagship Nature titles
FinELIb consortium authors become the latest to benefit from a TA for Nature and the Nature research journals
London, 31st August 2022
Springer Nature and the FinELIB consortium have agreed a three year open access (OA) deal for the publishers’ flagship title Nature and the Nature research journals. This marks the latest transformative agreement (TA) for the publisher’s highly selective titles following agreements with Bibsam, CDL and MPDL. Added to its 17 other agreements, Springer Nature’s TAs now support over 2,650 institutions and 2.5 million authors to publish OA globally.
Speaking on the agreements Caroline Nevison, Director Open Access Agreements, Open Research Strategy, remarked:
“We are incredibly proud to have agreed this TA with FinELIB - one which will support Finnish researchers with OA publication in a wide selection of high quality global OA journals, and one which drives forwards our shared goal of accelerating the development of science, bringing research into use for everybody, effectively and efficiently.
Transformative agreements are not a one size fits all approach - they take time, and with the Nature and Nature Research Journals, can be more complicated due the selectivity of the portfolio, the uniqueness of the non-primary research content, and the level of publishing in different institutions and countries. Yet as one lever in the drive to open research, TA’s are playing a crucial role in making publicly funded research immediately and openly accessible to all on publication, enabling entire countries' research output to flip to OA.”
The agreement, a three year deal to December 2024, will enable Finish researchers from 181 eligible institutions to publish Gold OA across the Nature hybrid portfolio. It includes subscription access to the Nature Research portfolio, with Nature Reviews and Protocols also covered in the wider agreement with FinElib. The agreement is at no cost to the individual researchers, as OA costs are covered by the consortium deal.
The volume of OA articles achieved with this Nature TA, combined with the fact that OA articles are downloaded on average six times more than non-OA articles and cited 1.6 times more, means even greater reach and impact for Finnish researchers and Finnish-funded research. By year end the publisher expects to have several additional Nature OA agreements in place globally to support OA publication for its flagship title.
Springer Nature continues to support all authors regardless of discipline, location or funding, to publish OA. The publisher’s 17 national agreements, which alongside its institutional deals, now support researchers from over 2,650 affiliated institutions to publish OA, enabling an expected 41,400+ OA articles to be published a year, 10% more than any other publisher. Earlier this month the publisher released a report which demonstrated the impact that publishing in its OA portfolio can have for authors, with research receiving higher usage, downloads and citations than any other fully OA publisher.
ENDS
1. An earlier version of this press release stated 30 eligible institutions.
Panelists include:
- More on the agreement can be found here.
- More on Springer Nature’s approach to OA and Open research can be viewed here and here.
- More information on how Springer Nature is enabling OA for those wishing to publish in Nature and the Nature Research journals can be found here.
Springer Nature has national transformative agreements in place in Austria, Australia, Colombia, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
What is a transformative agreement (TA)?
Definition: TAs enable participating institutions to combine journal subscription (read) access along with open access (OA) publication costs (APCs). In addition to managing the cost and administration of OA, TAs offer authors an easy way to comply with funders’ OA requirements.
Description: Under a transformative agreement subscription access and OA publishing are brought together into one reading and publishing contract across a consortium of institutions. This means that researchers in those institutions can publish under the “gold” open access model, while also gaining access to research in subscription journals. Spearheaded by Springer Nature with the first such agreement signed with the Association of Dutch Universities, VSNU, Netherlands in 2014, these agreements make the administration of OA simpler for both the institutions participating and their researchers. In addition, these agreements enable a wider group of researchers to benefit from the enhanced discoverability, increased citation and increased usage of OA content, help to solve the problem that some academic disciplines lack OA funding (a centralised APC allows any researcher from the participating institution, regardless of academic discipline, to publish OA), and also provide researchers with an easy way to comply with funders’ OA requirements.
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/gp/group and follow @SpringerNature
Information on the work undertaken by the Nature journals and the subsequent reach and impact of the research they publish can be viewed here.
Further information on the Nature journals can be found here.
Over 120 people work on Nature alone, which increases to more than 360 when the Nature research journals are included. Over 280 work on primary research content including 193 dedicated professional in-house editors who personally guide and assist authors through the peer review and revision process, working with them to ensure their final manuscript is the best it can possibly be. These editors are embedded in their communities. In 2019 they attended and gave more than 2000 conferences, presentations and lab visits to engage with and understand the academic community, and support initiatives that advance transparency, integrity and appropriate recognition. With journal editors investing the majority of their time assessing manuscripts that are not published, the cost of publishing these journals is driven as much by what is not published as by what is.
Publishing in these titles also delivers significant value to authors. On average, Nature research journal papers are cited around 12 times more and downloaded by institutional users around 34 times more than papers in typical journals. Research published in Nature and the Nature research journals also received nearly 9,500 mentions in policy documents in the past year demonstrating their broader reach and influence.
FinELib is a consortium of Finnish universities, research institutions and public libraries. Its mission is to secure and improve the availability of electronic resources. The consortium office operates at the National Library of Finland.
Felicitas Behrendt | Communications Manager, External Communications | Springer Nature | felicitas.behrendt@springernature.com
