Mixed feelings emerge on Springer Nature deal with British universities

“As part of the new deal with the German-British publisher announced last month, universities will have unlimited open-access publishing in Springer and Palgrave hybrid titles, while free-to-read publishing will be available in Nature and Nature research journals, although this option will be restricted to a certain number of papers….

While the agreement would “result in real-term cost savings for all institutions” and was accepted by all universities that responded to a consultation, a large number had “significant reservations” about the deal, added Jisc….

These concerns centered on the high cost of publishing open access outside the agreement and limited transparency, particularly regarding how Springer Nature’s article-processing charges (APCs) are calculated, with gold open access for Nature priced at 8,490 pounds ($10,616). Springer Nature was one of several major publishers—along with Elsevier—which opted in November not to participate in Plan S’s Journal Comparison Service, in which journals shared information about their costs and services.

 

Paul Ayris, pro vice provost at University College London (libraries, culture, collections, open science) told Times Higher Education that the sector would only “grudgingly” accept the new deal because it “bakes into the system the high prices that we’ve seen with subscriptions.”…”

Springer Nature doublespeak | Plan S

“One thing that crops up in politics is situations where politicians attempt to explain a new law they know people won’t like or agree with, and do so by putting a spin on it that describes it in a way that doesn’t seem so bad. This is also true of the publisher Springer Nature’s (SN) information about self-archiving for papers containing rights retention (RR) language. The information is provided on the page about SN journal policies….

[Quoting SN] “Authors should note, however, that manuscripts containing statements about open licensing of accepted manuscripts (AMs) can only be published via the immediate gold open access (OA) route, to ensure that authors are not making conflicting licensing commitments, and can comply with any funder or institutional requirements for immediate OA.”

 

This is where things start to get tricksy. Translation – if the author assigns a prior licence to their AAM and submits the manuscript to a SN subscription journal that also offers an Open Access (OA) option (sometimes known as a hybrid journal), then the publisher will only accept it if the author pays for OA publication (sometimes known as ‘gold’ OA). Mind you, SN is not rejecting the manuscript outright; it’s just that they will ONLY accept it if the author pays. So by extension, if they don’t pay, SN won’t publish the paper, which amounts to a rejection. However hard I try, I can’t seem to tally “only be published via the immediate gold open access (OA) route” with “only accepting manuscripts on their editorial merit.” The wording is slippery here. Like those politicians, SN doesn’t ACTUALLY state that if you don’t, won’t or can’t pay, they will reject your paper. But in practice, that is exactly what they imply. This is pure smoke and mirrors….”

UK universities agree open access publishing deal with Springer Nature | Jisc

“Following a year-long negotiation led by Jisc, UK universities have agreed a new, three-year read and publish open access (OA) deal with Springer Nature.

The deal meets the sector’s requirements to reduce costs and to expedite full and immediate open access in more than 2,500 Springer Nature titles, including Nature, the Nature research journals, and the Palgrave portfolio. 

It also helps researchers and their institutions meet research funders’ open access requirements. 

Results of the consultation on the latest proposal from Springer Nature were conclusive, with all 110 respondents voting to accept the offer, although a large number did so ‘with significant reservations’.  

There were concerns around the high cost of publishing OA outside the agreement and the limited transparency, particularly with how Springer Nature’s article processing charges (APCs) are calculated.  

Comments were also raised around Springer Nature’s approach to author rights retention, given the publisher’s commitment to gold OA, which some respondents felt created barriers to equitable OA publishing worldwide….”

‘Significant reservations’ over Springer OA deal | Times Higher Education (THE)

UK universities have agreed a new three-year read-and-publish deal with Springer Nature, despite many expressing “significant reservations” over the high cost of publishing open access in prestige titles.

As part of the new deal with the German-British publisher announced on 3 April, universities will have unlimited open-access publishing in Springer and Palgrave hybrid titles, while free-to-read publishing will be available in Nature and Nature research journals, although this option will be restricted to a certain number of papers.

Based on modelling, this cap on Nature-branded titles would be “sufficient” for British institutions, said Jisc, the UK’s higher education IT consortium, which has been negotiating with Springer Nature on behalf of UK institutions for more than a year.

While the agreement would “result in real-term cost savings for all institutions” and was accepted by all universities that responded to a consultation, a large number had “significant reservations” about the deal, added Jisc.

These concerns centred on the high cost of publishing open access outside the agreement and limited transparency, particularly regarding how Springer Nature’s article-processing charges (APCs) are calculated, with gold open access for Nature priced at £8,490. Springer Nature was one of several major publishers – along with Elsevier – which opted in November not to participate in Plan S’ Journal Comparison Service, in which journals shared information about their costs and services.

Paul Ayris, pro-vice-provost at UCL (libraries, culture, collections, open science) told Times Higher Education that the sector would only “grudgingly” accept the new deal because it “bakes into the system the high prices that we’ve seen with subscriptions”.

“Those APCs of €9,500 are a huge amount to pay. It’s too much for one article, and that level seems to have been built into the new deal. Springer Nature can’t explain how they’ve arrived at this price, either,” he added.

Although libraries recognised this was the “best possible deal that could be achieved at the moment”, Dr Ayris said, the transformative deals agreed with publishers were not delivering the change that many academics or librarians had anticipated. He added that they would exacerbate global inequalities because poorer nations would be unable to pay high-cost APCs.

Other concerns included Springer Nature’s approach to author rights retention, which some respondents felt created barriers to equitable open-access publishing worldwide, Jisc said.

The deal with the world’s second-largest publisher comes after the rejection of a previous offer in February because of cost concerns, with UK universities also vetoing a proposed deal last year that would have required them to pay nearly £1 million extra.

Welcoming the new agreement, Stephen Decent, principal and vice-chancellor at Glasgow Caledonian University, said it would “further extend the reach and impact of UK research by providing open-access publishing in 2,500 Springer Nature journals”, which would lead to about 6,000 papers a year being published in a free-to-read format with the world’s second-biggest academic publisher.

“While this is an important deal that delivers concessions, the goal of fully accessible open research still eludes us,” added Professor Decent, who called for “a more inclusive and open research culture, where all contributions to research are valued, regardless of the type of output or where they are published”.

Carolyn Honour, chief commercial officer at Springer Nature, said the new deal would “for the first time” cover all Springer Nature journals and would also “open up access to UK research” and extend “publishing opportunities to a broader range of institutions and disciplines”.

The publisher would “remain committed to working transparently, through the publication of data and resources, and extensively with our global partners, to drive progress towards this goal”, added Ms Honour.

 

The Scholarly Fingerprinting Industry

Abstract:  Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Wiley, and SAGE: Many researchers know that the five giant firms publish most of the world’s scholarship. Fifty years of acquisitions and journal launches have yielded a stunningly profitable oligopoly, built up from academics’ unpaid writing-and-editing labor. Their business is a form of IP rentiership—collections of title-by-title prestige monopolies that, in the case of Nature or The Lancet, underwrite a stable of spinoff journals on the logic of the Hollywood franchise. Less well-known is that Elsevier and its peers are layering a second business on top of their legacy publishing operations, fueled by data extraction. They are packaging researcher behavior, gleaned from their digital platforms, into prediction products, which they sell back to universities and other clients. Their raw material is scholars’ citations, abstracts, downloads, and reading habits, repurposed into dashboard services that, for example, track researcher productivity. Elsevier and the other oligopolist firms are fast becoming, in other words, surveillance publishers . And they are using the windfall profits from their existing APC-and-subscription business to finance their moves into predictive analytics.

 

Springer Nature and EMBO Cooperate to Publish the EMBO Press Suite of Journals

EMBO Press has chosen Springer Nature to be their new publishing partner from 1 January 2024. Authors who publish in EMBO Press journals will benefit from the global reach of Springer Nature’s leading journals. In addition, authors will have the option to transfer manuscripts between journals in the EMBO Press and Springer Nature portfolios.

This announcement follows EMBO Press’ recent decision that to advance global discoverability, transparency and availability of published research outcomes all papers will be published with full gold Open Access (OA) from 2024, and curated source data will be posted with fully reproducible methods.

PLOS Release Results from New Scheme & Springer Nature Launches OA Initiative | The Hub by The London Book Fair | Publishing News

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) has released the first results from its new initiative, launched in partnership with AI-driven data sharing support body DataSeer, to measure researchers’ Open Science practices across published literature.

The two organisations have released data on three of the numerical indicators they have developed together – on data sharing, code sharing, and preprint posting – to show that good practices in research data and code sharing, along with the use of preprints, are becoming increasingly prevalent in the research community….”

Springer Nature continues to drive global OA transition with new Transformative Agreements in America, Asia, Europe and Africa | Springer Nature Group | Springer Nature

“In the first two months of 2023 alone, Springer Nature can announce:

Its first TA in Southern Africa with the SANLiC (South African National Library and Information Consortium). It includes all 28 member institutions as well as the Universities of Botswana and Namibia;
Further agreements across North America including all 68 members of the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC), Carnegie Mellon University and Northeastern University;
New agreements in Europe with the FCCN, the scientific computing unit of the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology in Portugal, the NTK – Czech National Library of Technology in Czechia and CTK consortium in Slovenia; 
Its fifth TA for the highly prestigious Nature and Nature research journals with swissuniversities and a renewal of its wider agreement and;
Its fifth institutional OA book agreement and its first within Asia with the Universiti Brunei Darussalam….”

Perspectives on Medical Education transfers publishers to ]u[ Ubiquity Press | STM Publishing News

“International journal Perspectives on Medical Education (PME) has moved publisher, transferring from large, traditional publisher Springer Nature to the fully open access and open-source publisher ]u[ Ubiquity Press.  Since its initial launch 40 years ago, PME has sought to adapt itself to its ever-changing environment, including switching from Dutch-language to English and becoming open access in 2012. It has fast become a top journal in its field, receiving 941 submissions in 2021 alone, with a 2022 impact factor of 4.113 and a five year impact factor of 4.086.  Dr. Erik Driessen and Lauren Maggio, editor-in-chief and deputy editor-in-chief of PME, explain : “our editorial team decided in 2022 that moving the journal to a fully open access publisher was necessary in order to ensure the journal remained aligned with our core beliefs and values, including transparency and openness. Moving to ]u[ Ubiquity Press has not only ensured this, but has allowed PME to make space for more publications.” ”

N8 statement of support for the sector’s rejection of the Springer Nature proposal – N8 Research Partnership

“The N8 universities are fully committed to fostering open research in an equitable and financially sustainable way. We support the approach being taken by the UK’s Springer Negotiation Team and the recommendation to reject the most recent proposal from Springer on the basis it does not yet fully meet the core objectives of the negotiations.

We welcome the progress made so far and hope both parties can continue to work together to achieve an agreement which meets the core negotiation objectives and provides support for a sector-wide transition to open access….”

UK universities united in pushing for a better deal with Springer Nature | STM Publishing News

“Five higher education sector groups have jointly agreed a statement in support of continuing negotiations with the academic publisher, Springer Nature (SN). 

UK universities have two agreements with Springer Nature, which expired on 31 December 2022. On behalf of the sector, Jisc is handling negotiations for a new agreement that aims to deliver read access and open access publishing across the SN portfolio.   

The latest proposal, received in November, did not meet sector requirements and has been rejected by the sector but, as the statement demonstrates, the groups are united in their desire to reach an acceptable agreement.  

The terms of the expired agreements, including access to SN journals, are being honoured by SN until further notice. 

Signed by Guild HE, MillionPlus, N8 PVC-Rs, the Russell Group and the University Alliance, the statement says …”

Nature welcomes Registered Reports

“This year marks the 50th anniversary of Nature’s decision to mandate peer review for all papers. It’s an appropriate time to introduce readers and authors to Registered Reports, a research-article format that Nature is offering from this week for studies designed to test whether a hypothesis is supported (see go.nature.com/3kivjh1).

The fundamental principle underpinning a Registered Report is that a journal commits to publishing a paper if the research question and the methodology chosen to address it pass peer review, with the result itself taking a back seat. For now, Nature is offering Registered Reports in the field of cognitive neuroscience and in the behavioural and social sciences. In the future, we plan to extend this to other fields, as well as to other types of study, such as more exploratory research.

Why are we introducing this format? In part to try to address publication bias, the tendency of the research system — editors, reviewers and authors — to favour the publication of positive over negative results. Registered Reports help to incentivize research regardless of the result. An elegant and robust study should be appreciated as much for its methodology as for its results….”

Nature welcomes Registered Reports

“This year marks the 50th anniversary of Nature’s decision to mandate peer review for all papers. It’s an appropriate time to introduce readers and authors to Registered Reports, a research-article format that Nature is offering from this week for studies designed to test whether a hypothesis is supported (see go.nature.com/3kivjh1).

The fundamental principle underpinning a Registered Report is that a journal commits to publishing a paper if the research question and the methodology chosen to address it pass peer review, with the result itself taking a back seat. For now, Nature is offering Registered Reports in the field of cognitive neuroscience and in the behavioural and social sciences. In the future, we plan to extend this to other fields, as well as to other types of study, such as more exploratory research.

Why are we introducing this format? In part to try to address publication bias, the tendency of the research system — editors, reviewers and authors — to favour the publication of positive over negative results. Registered Reports help to incentivize research regardless of the result. An elegant and robust study should be appreciated as much for its methodology as for its results….”