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Springer Nature publishes one million gold Open Access articles
Springer Nature has announced it has published one million gold Open Access articles, claiming it is the first publisher to achieve the feat.
It said 25% of all articles it published since 2005 are gold OA, which makes the final version of an article freely and permanently accessible for everyone, immediately after publication. Copyright for the article is retained by the authors and most of the permission barriers are removed.
In 2020 alone, such Open Access articles accounted for 34% of all articles published by Springer Nature. Looking to the wider publishing landscape, Springer said it has published 16% of all OA primary research, which it says is 29% more than any other publisher.
In addition, analysis of Springer Nature’s one million articles shows the research has collectively been downloaded 2.6 billion times since 2016 in virtually every country in the world, including Antarctica. Nearly half of the articles are in Medicine (44%). Social Sciences and Humanities also doubled their OA share between 2015 and 2020. Whilse absolute numbers are low, these disciplines are seeing bigger growth than others, the publisher said.
Other key findings show Europe publishes the most OA content (40%) while Asia is the biggest user of content, accounting for 34% of article downloads. Likewise content related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) makes up 67% more OA content than it does of non-OA content.
Frank Vrancken Peeters, chief executive of Springer Nature, said: “Twenty years ago OA publishing was in its infancy. Even so, we put transitioning to an OA future at the heart of what we do because we believe in its importance in driving discovery and improving access to knowledge and learning. I am delighted we have reached this milestone and incredibly grateful to everyone who has helped our authors make such a significant amount of research immediately available for all to use.
“But our mission does not stop here. We need to build on this and move faster towards not just an Open Access but an Open Science future where all outputs of research are immediately accessible. The prize waiting for us is a faster and more effective research system, delivering benefits such as vaccines and solutions to global challenges such as climate change for the whole world”.
Springer Nature says it has continued to drive the OA transition by introducing the concept of Transformative Journals and providing all authors with the ability to publish OA in Nature and its other highly selective titles.
