Big Ten Academic Alliance and Springer Nature in unlimited OA agreement

The Big Ten Academic Alliance has signed a two-year Open Publishing Agreement with Springer Nature, making it the publisher’s first unlimited and uncapped open access agreement in the Americas. It is the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s fifth Open Publishing Agreement or OPA, and its most expansive to date.

The deal offers all authors across participating institutions unlimited open access publishing in Springer’s hybrid journals portfolio while expanding access to those titles regardless of past local subscriptions.

Authors from participating Alliance campuses can now publish their work openly in all Springer hybrid journals without paying article processing charges (APCs). The agreement is aimed at simplifying author workflows, allowing  authors to retain rights in their work, and ensuring that published articles are immediately open and available to everyone under a Creative Commons license.

Maurice York, Director of Library Initiatives for the Big Ten Academic Alliance, said, “Our Open Publishing Agreements model reflects the priorities articulated by our faculty: to disseminate their scholarship widely through open access in prominent and reputable journals without having to worry about the costs. This made Springer Nature an essential partner, as their titles are recognised for their academic excellence and global reach.”

Maria Lopes, Vice President of Institutional Sales at Springer Nature, said: “Springer Nature is proud to be the most comprehensive open access research publisher, and we share the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s desire to increase the impact and reach of their authors’ highly valuable research. This is why we were so eager to develop this agreement—a first for us in the Americas.”

Carrie Webster, Vice President of Open Access at Springer Nature, added: “Open science is essential to addressing the world’s urgent challenges, and this agreement with the output coming from world-class research institutions will greatly increase the number of freely available articles that can advance science faster and more rigorously while also enhancing transparency, accessibility, and reusability.”

Beyond publishing, this agreement also grants full read access to the entire Springer Hybrid portfolio across all participating campuses, which includes over 2,200 titles across the Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Adis imprints, as well as Academic Journals on Nature.com. Participants include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Oregon, University of Wisconsin, and the University of Chicago.

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