New agreement with Springer Nature

Researchers at Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs) often publish articles in Springer Nature’s open access journals, such as Nature Communications and Scientific Reports. These journals are open to all to read free of charge on the internet. To date, researchers have paid publication fees (known as ‘APCs’) – often using funds from the Swedish Research Council or other funding bodies.

The agreement that has now been signed means that researchers at Swedish HEIs avoid having to pay publication fees in all of Springer Nature’s almost 600 fully open access journals . The agreement is valid as from 15 July 2019 for three years. The number of articles included is based on the publication in the journals during the years 2015–2017.

“The Swedish Research Council, like most other research funding bodies, require the research funded to be published with open access,” says Sven Stafström, Director-General of the Swedish Research Council. But this is usually done on the publishers’ terms, and results in high costs. Here, all parties active in the research system have a joint responsibility to ensure we reach the goal of open access at reasonable cost and with retained quality of publication. The agreement with Springer Nature is a step in this direction. We are moving from individual publication fees to a joint, national payment model that gives better opportunities for follow-up of journal quality, less administration and lower costs.

Read more about the agreement on the Swedish National Library’s website. External link.

Do you have any questions relating to publication in any of the periodicals included in the agreement? Please contact the library at your HEI.