Springer Nature reports continued growth in TAs and OA publishing

Springer Nature has reported continued growth in its transformative agreement (TA) programme, with open access (OA) publishing through its agreements increasing by 12% in 2025.

The publisher signed 19 new transformative agreements and renewed a further 17 during the year, bringing its global total to 101 agreements. Springer Nature said these now support researchers at more than 4,400 institutions worldwide in publishing their work as open access.

The figures highlight the growing scale of the publisher’s TA programme. While transformative agreements were first introduced a decade ago, Springer Nature said that more than half of all TA-funded articles published through its agreements – more than 165,000 papers – have appeared during the past three years.

According to the publisher, the growth demonstrates sustained demand for transformative agreements and underlines the role they continue to play in supporting the transition to open access by expanding the reach and impact of research.

Carolyn Honour, Chief Commercial Officer at Springer Nature, said: “Our approach is built on more than two decades of experience working with institutions, funders and researchers to advance OA. Based on this, we recognise TAs as the most effective way to enable global participation, maintain research quality and deliver impact at scale. At a time of ongoing discussion around the OA transition, our focus remains on the approaches that deliver sustainable, proven value for researchers, institutions and society so research can be openly shared, responsibly reused and trusted by future generations.”

Springer Nature also highlighted evidence it says demonstrates the wider benefits of its open access publishing programme.

The publisher reported that authors publishing fully open access with Springer Nature received an average of 7.6 citations per article in 2025, a 21% increase on the previous year. It also said downloads of its OA content in low- and middle-income countries rose by 48%, extending access to research in regions where access barriers have traditionally been greater.

In addition, Springer Nature cited data suggesting that open access research is referenced in policy documents almost a year earlier than comparable non-OA articles, helping to accelerate the translation of research evidence into policy and decision-making.