Springer Nature continues to lead drive for OA transition across Europe
New transformative agreement with Italy and renewed deals with Austria and the Netherlands, see publisher continue to hold the largest number of national TAs across Europe, enabling researchers from over 2,650 affiliated institutions to publish open access
London | Heidelberg, 23 February 2022
Springer Nature has today announced its latest transformative agreement (TA), with Italy’s National Research Council (CNR), and also announces the renewal of TAs with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium in Austria and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU). With the first TA in Egypt with Government support, and its first in Canada and Latin America, announced in the last two months, Springer Nature continues to demonstrate its commitment to driving forward sustainable open research for all, across all economies. This enables researchers from over 2,650 affiliated institutions to publish open access, double that of any other publisher.
Springer Nature’s TA with CNR - Italy’s largest public research institute - is the publisher’s second in Italy. This three year agreement will see authors in CNR’s 88 research institutes be able to publish OA in over 2,300 Springer, Adis and Palgrave Hybrid journals, as well as having full access to all subscription journal content.
Speaking on the agreement with CNR, Caroline Nevison, Director, Commercial Transition OA at Springer Nature said: “We remain focused on facilitating the OA transition for a growing number of institutions, supporting academic collaboration, discoverability and usability at scale. We are delighted to extend that commitment across Italy with our new agreement with CNR, a partner closely aligned with our principles of advancing scientific discovery. Through this agreement we will be able to better support Italian researchers and their research outputs through the advancement of OA publishing.”
Alongside the new agreement in Italy, the start of 2022 has also seen the renewal of agreements in Austria and the Netherlands. The agreement with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium in Austria is entering its seventh year with an extension to 2023, and includes the addition of nine new institutions. The agreement with the Association of Universities (VSNU), Netherlands, now enters its eight year with an extension through 2022.
Dagmar Laging, Vice President, Institutional Sales Europe at Springer added: “Since Springer Nature pioneered its first TA in 2014, the agreements have proven themselves to be a key component in driving the sustainable transition to OA, and in some regions have enabled country level flips. These deals continue to demonstrate the shared global goal and commitment to open science through the sustainable promotion of open access. We are delighted to be able to continue to work with our longstanding and new partners to deepen this commitment to a truly open future, one which we believe is key to advancing scientific discovery and delivering real life benefits for all.”
Through outreach such as TAs with global partners, 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. Last year, the publisher was the first to immediately publish one million gold open access primary research and review articles, supporting nearly 2.5 million authors in making their research OA.
More on Springer Nature’s TAs can be found here, with further information on the publisher’s commitment to open science and its wider principles available here.
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Note to Editors:
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.
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.
More on Springer Nature’s approach to OA and Open research can be viewed here and here.
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The National Research Council (CNR) is the largest public research institution in Italy. The CNR’s mission is to perform research to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to promote the internationalisation of the national research system, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, and to advise Government and other public bodies.
The Austrian Academic Library Consortium “Kooperation E-Medien Österreich (KEMÖ)” is on behalf of its members responsible for the coordinated acquisition of electronic content and access rights to electronic media, including the coordinated administration of resources. KEMÖ also represents its members abroad, for example on the supra-regional working group “GASCO”, the German Austrian Swiss Consortia Organisation, or on the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and other relevant interest groups. Furthermore, KEMÖ participates in national and international open access initiatives. The Austrian Library Network and Service GmbH (OBVSG) provides operational support to KEMÖ and accommodates the administration office.
The VSNU Association of Universities in the Netherlands comprises the fourteen Dutch universities and looks after the interests of its members in their relationship with the government, politics and civil society organisations. In addition, the VSNU serves as an employers’ association that engages in consultation with government bodies and employee platforms on the terms of employment at the universities (which have around 52,000 employees in total). Finally, the VSNU provides specific services for its members. For further details, go to www.vsnu.nl.
Sam Sule | Communications | Springer Nature
sam.sule@springernature.com
