Springer Nature and the Austrian Academic Library Consortium renew open access contract for another three years
Researchers and students in Austria continue to benefit from the proven "Read & Publish" model. | The agreement combines the opportunity to publish open access in more than 1,900 Springer journals with access to more than 2,000 subscription journals.
London | Heidelberg | Vienna, 03 September 2019
Springer Nature and the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (Kooperation E-Medien Österreich KEMÖ) have renewed their existing open access contract for Springer journals. The transformative agreement enables researchers and students in Austria to publish peer-reviewed research articles open access in more than 1,900 Springer journals without additional fees. Consortium members also gain access to more than 2,000 Springer, Palgrave Macmillan and Adis subscription journals. Running from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021, the three-year agreement comprises 34 Austrian research institutions (universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes and state libraries) and the FWF Austrian Science Fund.
The Austrian Academic Library Consortium recognized the potential of open access transformation models early on, and successfully concluded one of the first Read & Publish agreements with Springer Nature in 2016. This agreement has contributed to the fact that around 70% of Springer Nature authors in Austria are now publishing open access. The renewal for an additional three-year contract period will further drive the publication of open access articles in Austria, to the benefit of researchers and students, as well as the global scientific community.
In a joint statement, the Library Consortium’s representatives emphasized that “for the consortium, the renewal of the agreement constitutes an important next step towards achieving free access to all scientific publications under transparent conditions and pricing in the future. The participating consortium members have once again excelled at finding collaborative solutions: a new cost-sharing model has been developed, which takes into account the publication output of each institution. In addition to the continuation of the smoothly running open access workflow, the participating institutions will benefit from a growing journal portfolio, to include titles from Palgrave Macmillan, Adis as well as new Springer titles. As a result, the member institutions will have access to even more content.”
Dagmar Laging, Vice President Institutional Sales Europe at Springer Nature commented: “We are particularly pleased that all Austrian institutions that have already participated in our first agreement in 2016 have agreed to this extension. Our successful cooperation with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium over the past three years has certainly helped us to develop the required infrastructure and framework at Springer Nature to also pave the way for further innovative transformative agreements in the future. The increased institutional take up in this renewal also proves that the broad acceptance of open access models among researchers and funders in Austria has increased significantly. For us, this is an important move to progress our position as transformative publisher, advance discovery and promote the dissemination of research in a transparent and sustainable way.”
Springer Nature is dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Open Access (OA) publishing and Open Research techniques and aims to make research results accessible to the widest possible readership worldwide, and thereby significantly promote the progress of science and society.
