Making open access (OA) easy for Manipal researchers: How the OA agreement extension with Springer Nature makes OA easier at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education

Author: Jovial Toh

Soon, open access (OA) will be the default way researchers publish their work. Springer Nature is actively working towards that day by actively advocating for it, around the world, and across disciplines. And that means making it easier for researchers to publish their work OA. Transformative agreements (TAs), for example, the expansion of the agreement with the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) is one way to make that real for more researchers.

MAHE adds OA support for its researchers 

Ironically, for a way of publishing designed around openness, many researchers have often perceived barriers to publishing their work OA. These include challenges around funding, knowing the steps in publishing OA, in finding the right venues for publishing OA. The new expanded agreement between MAHE and Springer Nature, though, tears down those barriers.

The new agreement makes it easy for MAHE’s researchers to publish OA with article processing charge (APC) covered, not only in most Springer Nature hybrid journals (including Springer and Palgrave), but, now, in the company’s fully OA portfolio too, including all the BMC and npj journals, as well as Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, and more.

Making this agreement with Springer Nature, specifically, helps MAHE’s researchers more than similar agreements with other publishers—even fully OA ones. Because Springer Nature’s OA publishing outperforms other publishers’ OA exposure. For example:

• Springer Nature’s fully OA portfolio has journals indexed across 139 Journal Citation Reports categories—more than any other fully OA publisher
• Articles in Springer Nature’s fully OA journals get 6.0 times more downloads per article (on average) than other fully OA publishers
• Articles in Springer Nature’s fully OA journals get 1.6 times more citations per article (on average) than other fully OA publishers

What MAHE researchers think

“I would like to take this opportunity to extend my appreciation to the OA publication system in Springer, which offers good scope to choose the appropriate journal from a variety of journals. The commitment to open access has opened the frontier for increased resources and research insights and ensures timely dissemination of research findings, making our work more accessible and impactful.”
—Dr. Dhanya Sunil, Professor Dept of Chemistry, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India

“Publishing open access helps unlock our research. The publication process is smooth, with immediate decision-making and excellent service from Springer Nature.”
—Dr. Usha Y. Nayak, Professor, Department of Pharmaceutics, Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India

“Manuscripts published through the MAHE-Springer OA agreement are highly cited and due to which my total number of citations has increased, and I hope people will be benefited by reading them.”
—Dr. Nirmal Mazumder, Dept of Biophysics, Manipal School of Life Science, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India

“Publishing with Springer Nature's OA journals elevated my research impact. Their support and quality services make them my first choice for scholarly dissemination.”
—Dr. Ismayil, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India

Support for researchers included in the agreement 

Getting your APC paid via the agreement is seamlessly integrated into the Springer Nature publishing workflows and led by you, the corresponding author (explore the steps in detail here) but part of what makes an agreement like this one powerful is that it covers more than just publishing costs. A big part of the additional value for MAHE researchers includes extra training and support from Springer Nature—all as part of the agreement. This support includes:

• Springer Nature-taught workshops for researchers, to help researchers learn more about what they get out of publishing OA (more readers, more citations). For example, last year, we partnered with Altmetric to host a webinar for MAHE researchers titled Enhancing Research Visibility Through Social Media.
• Classes and training on how to better write more successful articles.
• Guidance on how to get the most out of the agreement for their work—to ensure coverage of their OA fees.

These agreements, like the one with MAHE, are a win for everyone involved. They help researchers and authors at participating institutions get more attention (and citations) for their work while taking down barriers to publishing OA. They help the institutions gain visibility for the work their researchers do. They advance Springer Nature’s ambition to help convert more scholarly publishing to OA. And there’s a fourth win: Readers and other researchers—can access, read, and use this research without barriers or restrictions.

If you are a researcher at MAHE or its member institutions, you can publish under this agreement right now, in more than 2,000 hybrid journals and 500 fully OA journals across the Springer Nature portfolio.