This deal provides full read access to subscribed Springer Nature publications across Springer Compact journals, Nature Research journals, Nature Reviews and Palgrave journals. It also gives researchers at UEA the opportunity to publish articles on an open access basis in Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Nature journals helping to make UK research more accessible and sustainable. There are some restrictions and provisos and we will be making more information available when the details are known. In the meantime, if you have any questions please contact the Open Research team.
While the cost of OA publishing in Nature and Nature Research journals continues to be a concern to UK HEIs, the agreement has negotiated some significant concessions from Springer Nature.
Links to the journals available to UEA staff and students to read via this deal can be found in UEA Library's A-Z Journals list.
If you are planning to publish open access in a Springer / Palgrave Macmillan / Nature publishing title you should contact the Open Research team prior to submission to determine your eligibility for free/reduced Article Publishing Charges (APCs) as varying conditions apply from journal to journal. Note the conditions listed in the box on this page.
As a general rule, APCs should be covered in Springer / Palgrave Macmillan hybrid journals. For Nature Research hybrid journals, there is a shared HE sector-wide cap on the number of APCS covered, so it is best to check with the Open Research team first to make sure the cap has not been reached.
For fully open access journals, this deal may provide a discount to the APC depending upon the specific journal. Check with the Open Research team to see if the costs will be covered for your article.
Lists of the journals covered by the publishing part of this agreement are shown on the Springer Nature website- scroll down the page to find separate lists for Springer, Nature and the fully open access titles.
Nature Reviews, Scientific American and Nature Protocols titles do not offer the option to publish gold open access.
This deal does not cover open access publishing in BioMedCentral titles.
1 January 2023 - 31 December 2024
The corresponding author must be a UEA author or at another institution that is signed up to this deal.
The Creative Commons Attriibution (CC BY) licence must be chosen whenever it is offered.
We recommend inserting the following Rights Retention Statement into your covering letter and the article acknowledgements section: "For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission"
Colour charges are not covered by this agreement and cannot be covered by block grants. In general, images can appear in the online version of the article without incurring a colour charge.
If you need to discuss further, please contact openresearch@uea.ac.uk or your Academic Librarian.
1. Why were UUK and Jisc negotiating with Springer Nature?
Agreements with Springer Nature, Springer Compact and Nature Publishing, expired on 31st December 2022. The UK HE sector was consulted on its requirements for the negotiations - this included the option not to negotiate with Springer Nature. The objectives were to achieve a new agreement that brought together the whole Springer Nature portfolio.
2. What were the requirements from UUK and Jisc for the negotiations?
The 5 key requirements outlined by the sector were:
1. Reduce and constrain costs
2. Full and immediate transition to open access
3. Aid compliance with funder mandate
4. Transparency - build confidence that the charges for the next Springer agreement are fair and reasonable
5. Deliver improvements in service, workflows, and discovery
For more information visit the Jisc website on the negotiations.
3. Did UUK and Jisc get what the sector wanted?
The vast majority of the sector’s requirements are satisfied by the new agreement. Some requirements were only partially satisfied, for example, unlimited open access publishing is included in the Springer Compact and Palgrave journals but is capped in the Nature Research journals.
4. If we didn’t get what we wanted, why did the sector accept the proposal?
The negotiation team felt that the negotiations had gone as far as was possible and they were unlikely to secure any further concessions from Springer Nature. The decision was therefore made to put the latest proposal to the sector, who voted to accept.
5. What are the main benefits of the agreement?
The agreement reduces and constrains costs, provides open access publishing across Springer Nature’s hybrid journal portfolio, extends read access to include all Palgrave titles and provides a discount on publishing in Springer Nature’s fully open access titles.
6. Can I continue to publish with Springer Nature?
Yes, researchers can continue to publish in Springer Compact journals using the existing process. Unlimited open access publishing is now included in Palgrave titles and Nature Research journals, though a sector-wide cap applies for these.
7. Do we still have access to the same content?
Yes, read access is maintained and extended to include Palgrave titles.
8. Will this new agreement save UEA money?
The new agreement helps constrain costs compared with the costs of not having a deal at all. However the longer term trajectory for Read and Publish deals is not looking favourable because of the rising costs of APCs which is why the HE community has expressed serious reservations about the long term sustainability of this Agreement and others like it.
