Springer Nature supports further transition to open access through expansion of transformative agreements in Japan
Continuous increase in the number of participating institutions in the Japan TAs will see the publication of over 2,400 open access articles in 2025.
London | Tokyo, January 29, 2025
To enable researchers to publish their research open access (OA), Springer Nature has expanded its transformative agreements (TA) in Japan from 10 universities in 2023 to a total of 60 institutions in 2025. Through the TAs, researchers affiliated with any of the participating institutions in Japan, can publish OA without restriction in over 2000 hybrid journals published by Springer Nature. As part of the agreements, researchers of the participating institutions also have access to research published in Springer Nature journals across the Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Adis portfolios and in the Academic Journals on nature.com.*1
Springer Nature currently operates two types of TAs in Japan: (1) Japan Pilot Transformative Agreement with the Research Universities Consortium (RUC); and (2) Japan Springer Research Institute Transformative Agreement (J-SPRINTA) for non-RUC institutions.
Key highlights of the TAs in Japan for 2025 are as follows:
- Twenty-two new TAs with Springer Nature will start in January 2025. This consists of three institutions starting the Japan pilot TA and 19 institutions starting J-SPRINTA, including three governmental institutions, the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), as well as 1 hospital, the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology (NCGG).
- Since its launch in 2023, a total of 60 institutions in Japan have upgraded their subscriptions to a TA with Springer Nature. This consists of 24 pilot TA institutions and 36 J-SPRINTA institutions.
- The TAs will see over 2400 articles published OA in 2025, which is more than 2.5 times the volume of OA articles compared to 2023.
Antoine Bocquet, Vice President Sales Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania and Managing Director of Springer Nature Japan said:
“I am pleased that Springer Nature has further expanded the agreement with Japanese institutions, including governmental institutions and a hospital for the first time. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all the institutions who are part of these TAs, especially those who started in 2025. Since the launch of the TAs, in three years, the number of institutions participating in our TAs has expanded six times, with over 2.5 times increase in the volume of OA articles to be published. We have been working with our partners in Japan to establish a flexible framework to enable institutions to find the right TA model that meets the needs of their researchers”
“Our data from our TAs in Japan shows that on average, OA articles are downloaded about 5-6 times higher compared to non-OA articles. We are also expecting more OA articles in research fields, which previously saw relatively lower OA uptake, such as physical sciences and humanities and social sciences (HSS). It is great to see researchers benefit from the increased visibility of their work through OA publishing. The increased accessibility of research enables the research to reach a broader audience, including the general public, allowing them to use, distribute and build upon research published OA. We look forward to continuing to work with the Japanese community to further promote open science in Japan”
*1 Participating institutions have access to journal titles to which they currently have access.
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Notes to Editors
The participating institutions of the TAs can be viewed from here.
Related link: Pilot Transformative Agreement for Japan - Information for authors
Japanese page: https://www.springernature.com/jp/open-research/oa-agreements/japan
About J-SPRINTA
Launched in 2024, this new TA model, enables non-RUC institutions, regardless of whether they have a subscription to a Springer journal package, to enter a three-year TA with Springer Nature giving their researchers funding support to publish OA in Springer Nature's hybrid journals. In addition, at a relatively low additional cost, institutions are also offered access to Springer Nature journals as well as the publishing service, making the new TA model much more cost effective than traditional subscription journal package models. Institutions that are eligible for J-SPRINTA are those which are expected to publish more than five articles a year.
Related link: Springer Nature expands Transformative Agreements with Japanese universities driving further transition to Open Access
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