SpringerOpen

SpringerOpen is a portfolio of open-access journals and books published by Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global scientific, technical and medical publisher, in collaboration with University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. SpringerOpen journals are published in partnership with Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press, and are indexed in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The publisher is a member of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, and has partnerships with Wellcome Trust, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and National Institutes of Health.

Introduction

SpringerOpen is part of the Springer Nature group, which also includes Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macmillan Education. The publisher offers a range of open-access publishing options, including gold open access, green open access, and hybrid open access, and has partnerships with University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and Stanford University. SpringerOpen journals are published in a range of fields, including biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics, and are edited by Nobel laureates, Fellows of the Royal Society, and members of the National Academy of Sciences. The publisher is also a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, Directory of Open Access Journals, and Open Access Publishing in European Networks.

History

The history of SpringerOpen dates back to the founding of Springer Science+Business Media in 1842 by Julius Springer in Berlin, Germany. The company was initially a book publisher and later expanded into journal publishing with the launch of Springer-Verlag in 1911. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company underwent significant expansion, with the acquisition of Kluwer Academic Publishers and Plenum Publishers, and the launch of SpringerLink in 1996. SpringerOpen was launched in 2010 as a portfolio of open-access journals and has since grown to include over 200 journals and 100 books, with partnerships with University of California, Los Angeles, University of Chicago, and Columbia University.

Publications

SpringerOpen publishes a range of journals and books in various fields, including life sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences. The publisher's journals are edited by experts in the field, including Nobel laureates such as James Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin, and are published in partnership with learned societies such as the American Mathematical Society, American Physical Society, and American Chemical Society. SpringerOpen books are published in a range of formats, including print on demand, ebook, and open access, and are available through online retailers such as Amazon, Google Books, and Apple Books, with partnerships with British Library, Library of Congress, and National Library of Australia.

Open Access Policy

SpringerOpen has a gold open access policy, which means that all articles are made available free of charge to readers immediately upon publication, in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, and Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. The publisher also offers a range of open access licenses, including Creative Commons licenses, which allow authors to retain copyright and grant usage rights to readers, in partnership with Creative Commons, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Free Software Foundation. SpringerOpen is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association and the Directory of Open Access Journals, and has partnerships with PLOS, BioMed Central, and Hindawi Publishing Corporation.

Impact and Reception

The impact of SpringerOpen has been significant, with many of its journals receiving high impact factors and being indexed in major citation databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed. The publisher has also received recognition for its innovative publishing models and commitment to open access, including the ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing and the SPARC Innovator Award, with partnerships with SPARC, Open Society Foundations, and Electronic Frontier Foundation. SpringerOpen has been praised by researchers, librarians, and funding agencies for its high-quality publications and commitment to open access, and has partnerships with National Science Foundation, European Research Council, and Australian Research Council.