Image – Getty: David Moran
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Transformation Depends on Collaboration’
The newly released fourth “annual report” on open-access progress from Springer Nature was preceded in April by the company’s announcement that it had reached a goal to publish 50 percent of its primary research in open-access formats.Quickly following with a “we’re not done yet” statement, the company has some commentary from chief publishing officer Harsh Jegadeesan, saying, “We are committed to progressing the transition to OA with every Springer Nature-owned journal offering authors an immediate OA option when their article is accepted.”
What becomes perhaps most interesting, of course, is the part that isn’t said. Jegadeesan goes on to say, “Transformation depends on collaboration—and we’re committed to moving forward, sustainably together.” There seems, however, to be no accounting of what’s needed from such “collaboration” and (even more intriguing), what’s standing in the way of the collaborative success envisioned.
“The transition to open-access is complex,” he says, “but using our experience, knowledge of transformative agreements, and working closely with funders, institutions and partners across the world, we’re focused on making the shift to open access an option for all economies and regions.” The challenges to making such a shift are … not mentioned.
This summer’s “2024 Open Access Report” notes a 10th year of transformative agreements—and it includes a call “for greater industry collaboration to support a more inclusive and sustainable open-access transition.”
In that 10 years, Springer reports, it has produced more than 3,300 open-access books, having begun the decade with just 160 such publications.
In 2024, the company reports, it added 22 new transformative agreements for a total of more than 80 of them, covering some 3,700 institutions. This, a note points out, refers to both Springer and Nature’s transformative agreements.
Also in 2024, the company reports, it opened 68 new journals “including three Cureus titles, ensuring we support all researchers with finding a home for their work.”
And Springer Nature reports seeing a gain of 1.7 billion downloads of its open-access articles in 2024, a 30-percent rise over the 2023 count.
Several more points are worth note:
- Downloads of open-access content, Springer Nature says, “increased by 21 percent in lower -middle income countries, and 14 percent in lower-income countries in 2024;
- The company’s transformative agreements enabled 10 times more gold open-access articles than those published outside of such an agreement, up from seven times in 2023; and
- Since 2015, the company says, transformative agreements have grown at an average annual rate of 42 percent.
“In 2024,” the new document says, “our average acceptance rate for full open-access articles was 21.1 percent, a 7.5-percent drop from the previous year. Over the last five years we have seen a steady decline in full open-access acceptance rate, going from 29.5 percent in 2019 to 21.1 percent in 2024, demonstrating our continued focus on ensuring the publication of high-quality open-access research.”
And as is frequently the case in these reports from this rightly proud component of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, the various statistics and comparative assertions of the material seem to be at least as self-promotional as they are informational.
Success, however salutary and welcome, can be hard to communicate without a tone of self-aggrandizement, and perhaps this aura is unavoidable. And yet, such pieces as this “annual report” might benefit greatly from a concise enumeration of the barriers to the broader, more comprehensive progress desired.
At one point, there’s a quick reference to “supporting more open ways to share, removing barriers to participating,” which relates to the 2024 introduction of “a unified open code policy and simplified protocols to help authors share their work more easily and transparently.” There’s also a statement that “Ensuring that the research we publish is reliable, trustworthy, and can be built on by scientists and innovators is our highest priority.”
And, related to that question of reliability, here is a very clear reflection from the annual report of an area in which movement is being sought (and achieved): the question of retractions:
“In 2024, 2,923 retractions took place [in] historical and recently published research.
“61.5 percent (1797 articles) of retractions were for papers published before January 2023 as part of our commitment to cleaning up the academic record. 38.5 percent (1,126) of retractions were for articles published after January 2023. Less than half (41 percent) of the retractions for content published after January 2023, were for open-access articles.”
That kind of revelation offers a detailed look at the nature and size of one barrier in the development of open access and views of it. Material of this kind, given at least as much prominence as great moments and sterling statistics goes a long way to revealing the landscape of challenges being navigated here. This at least can reflect a sense for what’s not yet working as well as what is.
More from Publishing Perspectives on open access is here, more on scholarly and academic publishing is here, and more on Springer Nature is here.
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