New Opportunity to Publish Open Access in Springer Nature Journals

Open access, Publishing,

Guest post by Rebecca Lloyd, History and Spanish & Portuguese Librarian

Temple University Libraries has signed a three-year agreement (2024-2026) with journal publisher Springer Nature that allows Temple-affiliated corresponding authors to publish open access articles at no cost in over 2,000 of their hybrid journals (i.e., subscription journals that offer authors the option to pay a fee to make their article open access). This agreement comes through Temple Libraries’ membership in the NERL consortium.

Publishing open access allows anyone to read these scholarly works immediately upon publication, free of charge. This new agreement builds on Temple Libraries’ ongoing efforts to support open access publishing, making impactful research readily accessible to scholars worldwide. Making these papers openly accessible also benefits the authors by amplifying the reach of their work.   

“This Springer agreement represents yet another step in our long-term commitment to investing library resources in a diverse ecosystem for open scholarship and open access,” says Joe Lucia, Dean of Libraries. “Transformative agreements that provide faculty authors a clear path toward open access publishing help to broaden awareness of this important transition in publishing and create opportunities for institutions like Temple to evaluate the best paths towards a fully open scholarly publishing environment.” 

How does the Springer Nature transformative agreement work?  

After an article is accepted for publication by a hybrid Springer Nature journal, Temple authors will: 

  • Receive an invitation from Springer Nature to complete the publication process 
  • Identify your affiliation with Temple University (faculty, student, or staff) as author (must be the corresponding author) and use your Temple University email address 
  • Receive confirmation that your article can be published open access without any charge (i.e., no article processing charge (APC)) through the NERL agreement 
  • Elect to publish your article open access, if desired 

Further details:  

  • There may be a limit to the number of Springer Nature articles Temple authors can publish open access each calendar year without paying an APC. This opportunity, therefore, will be first come, first served. 
  • Eligible article types: Original Paper, Review Paper, Brief Paper, or Continuing Education 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Transformative Agreement (TA)?

An agreement with a publisher in which APC charges are covered by the library for affiliated scholars who publish open access in that publisher’s journals. The agreement also includes subscription access to the publisher’s journal content.   

What is an Article Processing Charge (APC)?

A fee authors must pay to publish an open access article in some journals. 

What additional support does Temple Libraries offer to support open access publishing? 

Temple Libraries has current transformative agreements with two other publishers to cover or discount the cost of publishing open access journal articles. We have an agreement with Cambridge University Press that waives the APC for eight Temple-authored open access CUP journal articles per calendar year. We also have an agreement with BioMed Central to cover 50% of the APC for Temple authors who publish in any of BMC’s open access journals. 

Eligible Temple authors can also apply for the Libraries’ Open Access Publishing Fund, which covers up to 50% of the APC for those who would like to publish in an open access journal. Note that articles cannot be in a hybrid open access journal. 

Contact Alicia Pucci, Assistant Director of Scholarly Communications, at alicia.pucci@temple.edu or your subject librarian with any questions about publishing open access with library support.