Open access deal with Springer Nature

Following a year-long negotiation led by Jisc, the University of Leicester is among UK universities who have agreed a new, three-year read and publish open access (OA) deal with Springer Nature. The negotiations were governed by pre-agreed sector requirements. Following the signing and implementation of the agreement, our university will work alongside the sector to set the requirements for future negotiations and open science more generally. Further information on the sector announcement of agreeing this deal can be found on the Jisc website.

About the negotiations

Discussions with Springer Nature began around eighteen months ago, with formal negotiations beginning in June 2022. UK institutions were consulted on their requirements for a new agreement with Springer Nature in March 2022. The following key requirements were agreed:

• Support full and immediate open access to research
• Reduce and constrain costs
• Demonstrate Springer Nature’s commitment to a global transition to open access and build confidence that the charges for the agreement are fair and reasonable
• Support UK institutions to foster Open Research.

What does this mean for Leicester corresponding authors publishing with Springer Nature?

• Researchers will be able to publish open access (no cost author-side) as part of the agreement in Springer, Palgrave, and Academic Journals
• Researchers will be able to publish open access (no cost author-side) in all Nature Research journals (except Nature Reviews, Nature Protocols, and SciAM)
• Researchers will receive a 15% discount on Article Processing Charges when publishing in any of Springer Nature’s Fully Open Access journals
• Researchers who wish to opt out of gold open access publishing can do so and share their author accepted manuscripts immediately

Guidance and support

We have updated the open access hub with information on this deal, where we list all of the publisher transitional agreements signed by the University Library. The Library will manage the approval and eligibility workflows and it is recommended that all Leicester authors read the Springer author guide on the new author publishing workflows.

Summary

Who can publish: corresponding author must be affiliated with the University of Leicester

What can you publish: research articles

Where you can publish: in more than 2,000 Springer Open Choice hybrid journals and 38 Nature Academic journals

How to access the deal: Identification and eligibility takes place during the author publication workflow on the Springer Nature publishing platform

Further information on the agreement, and the journals included in the agreement, can be found on the Springer Nature website.