News

Jisc Springer Negotiations

UK institutions via Jisc are in negotiation with Springer Nature to secure a sustainable open access transitional agreement for the Springer, Nature, Nature research and Palgrave journals.

Key takeaways

• Sector led negotiations are underway to reach an affordable, sustainable agreement enabling us to not only read these journals, but also to publish open access at no additional cost
• Negotiations include the journals covered by the Springer Compact Agreement which ends on 31st Dec 2022, plus the Nature, Nature Research and Palgrave titles
• While negotiations continue authors can still publish in Springer, Nature, Nature research journals and Palgrave journals, taking steps to ensure compliance with funder requirements

Background

The University's Springer Compact Agreement expires on 31 December 2022. The Springer Compact Agreement has been in place since 2015. It was the first UK transitional agreement and combined open access publishing in around 2000 titles with read access to 2500 titles across the Springer journals. Nature Journals, Nature Research and Palgrave titles were not included. Institutions are seeking to combine Springer Nature's full portfolio of journals under one transitional agreement, delivering full and unlimited open access. 

Why we need a Transitional Agreement

Springer Nature is the second largest publisher of UK research. Expenditure by subscribing institutions with Springer Nature is over €20 million, exclusive of spend on publishing fees for full open access (OA) titles. Transitional Agreements;

• Reduce and constrain costs
• Provide a full and immediate transition to open access
• Aid compliance with funder mandates through immediate open access 
• Ensure transparency on fair and reasonable charges
• Deliver improvements in service, workflows and discovery

Current status of the negotiations

Sector-led negotiations facilitated by The UUK/Jisc Content Negotiation Strategy Group and the Jisc Content Expert Group are underway. Despite several rounds of negotiations throughout 2022, Springer Nature have so far failed to provide a proposal that fully meets the sector’s requirements. The next round of the negotiations will continue into February 2023.

If an agreement can't be reached 

The sector aims to negotiate a satisfactory deal with Springer Nature. However there is a possibility that UK universities may need to walk away without an agreement. As with the Elsevier Science Direct Agreement there are robust plans in progress to ensure that our researchers still have access to the articles they need to read in the event that an agreement can't be reached. 

What to do if you want to publish a funded paper in a Springer Nature hybrid journal now

UKRI and other Plan S affiliated funders will not pay for open access in a hybrid journal unless they are part of a transformative agreement. If you want to submit to a hybrid journal that is not covered by the Compact Agreement and funds are not available to cover an article processing charge, include a rights retention statement when you submit your manuscript. This enables you to make the accepted manuscript open access under a CC BY licence through Pure/AURA immediately on publication.

The University of Aberdeen is implementing a new Research Publications Policy which wil enable rights retention, to come into effect from May 2023. 

As an additional step, upon editorial acceptance, notify the journal that a UKRI or Plan S exceptional publishing agreement is required for the article. 

It may still be possible to access funds for fully open access titles via the block grant for UKRI funded articles. 

Please contact the Open Research Team for advice before you submit. 

Last updated 21/12/2022, revised 08/05/2023

Springer Nature's revised application for Jisc-approved transformative journal status accepted

5 August 2022

A revised proposal for Jisc-approved transformative journal status for Nature Research and Palgrave titles has been approved. Papers submitted to Nature Research and Palgrave journals after 1 April 2022 will be eligible for UKRI open access funds. University of Aberdeen researchers should contact openaccess@abdn.ac.uk to discuss their options and block grant availability before submission.

The ability to deposit author accepted manuscripts under CC-BY terms without charge continues until 31 December 2022.

Read more on the Jisc News page. 

Important Information on Publishing in Springer Nature Journals for UKRI Funded Authors

6 June 2022

Negotiations are ongoing between Jisc and Springer Nature to reach a transformative open access agreement. Read the latest information from Jisc on the negotiations here.

Springer Nature have been unsuccessful in their recent application to gain Jisc-approved transformative journal status and have been asked to submit a revised application. Therefore UKRI funded papers submitted to the Nature Research and Palgrave journals after 1 April 2022 remain ineligible to have the APC paid by the UKRI Block Grant. 

Springer Nature continue to guarantee a compliant route to publication for these UKRI corresponding authors by offering them the ability to select to deposit their AAM during the period of 1 April to 31 December. Authors should contact Springer and include the following text with submissions in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any cover letter/note accompanying the submission: ‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’.

Contact the Scholarly Communications team for advice. 

See Jisc News for full information. 

Springer Nature and the UKRI Open Access Policy

14 April 2022

The HE Sector and Jisc are currently in negotiation with Springer Nature to secure a transitional agreement which also includes Nature branded and Palgrave journals. The University currently has the Springer Compact agreement in place which allows both read access and publishing in most hybrid (subscription) Springer Nature journals. However, this agreement does not cover Nature-branded or Palgrave titles. 

Springer Nature have stated that they will guarantee a compliant route to publication for UKRI-funded corresponding authors submitting to these titles from 1 April until 31 December 2022 while negotiations are underway. 

For assistance with submissions please contact the open access team.

UKRI-funded researchers at University of Aberdeen should deposit a copy of the author's accepted manuscript in Pure/AURA under the CC BY Creative Commons licence immediately on publication in accordance with Route 2 (#6, p.2) of the UKRI open access policy. The below statement should be included with any submission informing the publisher of the authors intention to make any resulting accepted manuscript available under the CC BY licence. 

"For the purpose of open access, the author(s) has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’‘

See below for the most recent announcement from Jisc and Springer Nature. 

Jisc statement on the eligibility of Nature, Nature research, Palgrave journals to use UKRI open access funding

UK institutions are in negotiation with Springer Nature to secure a transitional open access agreement for the Nature, Nature research journals and Palgrave journals. A proposal that meets the requirements of the sector has not yet been provided; the latest proposal, for an agreement to start in January 2023, was unanimously rejected by the UUK Jisc content negotiation strategy group and Jisc content expert group.

In accordance with UKRI OA policy, whilst Springer Nature provides a compliant route to OA publishing in Nature, Nature research journals and Palgrave journals via immediate publishing of the Version of Record OA under a CC BY licence, authors (and their institutions) are not able to use UKRI OA funds to pay for APCs in these titles as they are hybrid journals and ‘not part of a transitional arrangement that meets the sector’s requirements’.

Springer Nature is seeking to register their Nature, Nature research journals and Palgrave journals as Jisc approved Transformative Journals (TJs) and ‘guarantee a compliant route to publication for UKRI-funded corresponding authors submitting to these titles from 1st April until 31st December 2022 enabling us to register them as Jisc-approved Transformative Journals.’

This means that the publication charges of up to €9500 are not currently eligible to be supported using UKRI’s open access funds.

Whilst negotiations for a transitional agreement are ongoing, we hope to secure an arrangement for these titles that provides a compliant route for UKRI funded authors, but which does not compel an author or an institution to pay publication charges.

Authors can check the status of Nature, Nature Research journals and Palgrave journals at: Sherpa and JCT.

Statement issued by Springer Nature 1 April 2022

Springer Nature shares UKRI and Jisc’s goals of enabling a full transition to immediate OA for primary research.

UKRI-funded authors submitting to Springer Nature journals within our existing Jisc Springer Compact transformative Agreement (TA) as well as our fully OA journals can continue to publish in these titles and utilise UKRI OA funds.

For our journals which are currently not part of our TA with Jisc (Nature, Nature research journals, Palgrave journals), discussions are continuing with UK institutions and Jisc,  with the aim of having a TA agreement in place from January 2023. 

We appreciate however that the lack of a formally agreed funding mechanism for these titles from 1st April will be concerning for potential authors and so, in recognition of our desire to put in place a transformative agreement with UK institutions, Springer Nature will guarantee a compliant route to publication for UKRI-funded corresponding authors submitting to these titles from 1 April until 31 December 2022, enabling us to register them as Jisc-approved Transformative Journals. 

As a result, these authors will be able to publish in compliance with UKRI policy and may even use available funds if desired to make the final published version immediately available.