UC-Springer Agreement Activated: Open Access Publishing Support Now Available to UC Authors

Under the agreement between the University of California and Springer Nature announced last June, it is now easier and more affordable for UC authors to publish their articles open access in Springer journals — including those published by Springer, Adis, and Palgrave Macmillan, as well as academic journals on nature.com. The integration of Nature-branded journals into the agreement is expected in 2022.

Beginning today, all UC corresponding authors who publish in Springer journals will by default have their articles designated as open access and the UC libraries will automatically pay the first $1,000 of the open access fee, formally called an article processing charge or APC. Authors who do not have research funds available can request that the UC libraries pay the entire open access fee, ensuring that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors who wish to publish open access in these journals. Authors can complete the entire payment process, including requests for full funding support when needed, within Springer Nature’s online article acceptance and publication system. Authors may choose to opt out of open access publishing if they prefer to publish their article on a subscription (pay-to-read) basis.

UC’s open access agreement with Springer Nature is the largest in North America to date and UC’s fifth such agreement with a diverse range of publishers, including Cambridge University Press, computer science society publisher ACM, and native open-access publishers PLoS and JMIR, which publishes the Journal of Medical Internet Research. 

Transforming traditional journal subscriptions into agreements that also provide for open access publishing of UC research supports the University’s public mission by making more UC research freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world.

As Kum-Kum Bhavnani, chair of the UC’s systemwide Academic Senate and a professor at UC Santa Barbara, said when the agreement was reached: “At a time when mitigating the impact of the coronavirus underscores the critical importance of sharing research outcomes right away, this agreement strengthens the faculty’s long-standing commitment to ensuring the fruits of our research are freely, publicly and openly available. I am proud of UC’s leadership, in the U.S. and around the world, on these matters.”

More details about the Springer Nature open access publishing process and the agreement in general are available on the UC Office of Scholarly Communication’s webpage and FAQ about the agreement. UC Davis authors are encouraged to contact the library’s Scholarly Communications Officer Michael Ladisch (mladisch@ucdavis.edu) with any questions.