Million-up for Springer Nature gold OA articles

Springer Nature has become the first publisher to immediately publish one million gold open access (OA) primary research and review articles.

This means that 25 per cent of all articles Springer Nature has published since 2005 are gold OA. In 2020 alone, such open access articles accounted for 34 per cent of all articles published by Springer Nature.

When looking at the wider OA publishing landscape, Springer Nature says it has now published 16 per cent of all OA primary research, 29 per cent more than any other publisher. Nearly 2.5 million authors across all academic disciplines and from around the globe have therefore been supported in making their research open access.

Further analysis shows that: 

●        The research has collectively been downloaded 2.6 billion times since 2016.

●        The articles have been downloaded in virtually every country in the world, and even in Antarctica.

●        Nearly half of the articles are in medicine (44 per cent). In comparison, medicine accounts for 20 per cent of non-OA content.

●        Social sciences and humanities doubled their OA share between 2015 and 2020. Whilst absolute numbers are low, these disciplines are seeing bigger growth than other disciplines. 

●        Europe publishes the most OA content (40 per cent) while Asia is the biggest user of content (34 per cent of article downloads).

●        Content related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) makes up a greater proportion of OA content than it does of non-OA content - 67 per cent more. SDG research published OA is also downloaded and cited more than non-SDG content published OA.

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 like vaccines and solutions to global challenges such as climate change for the whole world.'