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Over the past several years, and within a more general debate on whether information should be universally accessible in the internet age, the scientific community, including librarians, researchers, authors, educators and publishers have been discussing, sometimes vociferously, about whether the traditional subscription model for scientific journals is the best way forward.

The most strident proponents of the open access model have styled themselves as a movement and demand that information should be “free”; more moderate ones just argue that it should be “free of charge to the reader”.  OA opponents allege that only the subscription model, i.e. where readers, or the institutions they belong to, pay for content, can guarantee the integrity of scientific literature.

At the beginning of 2004, at the height of the debate on open access and STM publishing, Springer began looking at a system that would accommodate those that wished to publish using an open access model.  The premise was that, as long as the added value of services provided by publishers was acknowledged and the costs thereof were covered, Springer was happy to provide the research community the opportunity to do so.

In the spirit of experimentation that is part of Springer’s company culture, and while the debate raged on, Springer Open Choice^TM was launched during the summer of 2004.

Press release: Open Choice: Springer adds new publication model 

This publishing option gives authors the choice of publishing model after the article has been through the peer review process.  The author or his/her institution has the choice of paying a publishing fee of USD 3000 and publishing by open access, or not paying and publishing by the traditional subscription model.

Our key message is: Springer Open Choice^TM allows the scientific community the possibility of using and testing open access publishing.

In the summer of 2005, Jan Velterop, an experienced publisher and well-known proponent of open access as a business model, joined Springer to promote Springer Open Choice^TM not only among authors, but also internally among publishers at Springer.  

Press release: Springer strengthens its commitment to freely accessible research literature

In June 2007, UKB (the consortium of Dutch university libraries and the National Library of the Netherlands) and Springer signed a declaration of intent for a pilot project to study the economic effects of open access publishing – the first ever by a large STM publisher and a consortium of libraries in this area.

Press release: UKB en Springer tekenen open access intentieverklaring

Click here for an unofficial English translation of this press release. 

In September 2007 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) expressed its support for Springer Open Choice^TM as a publishing option for their grantees. 

Press release: Howard Hughes Medical Institute expresses support for Springer Open Choice

Also in September 2007, Springer and the State and University Library of Göttingen (Germany) signed an agreement for a pilot project lasting to the end of 2008 in which all accepted articles by researchers at the university would be published using Springer Open Choice^TM.

Press release: Universität Göttingen verbessert Möglichkeiten der Open Access-Publikation 

Click here for an unofficial English translation of this press release.

Similar projects were agreed with the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in February 2008 and with the California Digital Library on behalf of the ten campuses of the University of California in January 2009.

In the autumn of 2007, the debate in the United States on the National Institute of Health (NIH) public access policy became so robust that, in September 2007, Springer issued a statement clarifying its position.

In April 2008, Springer announced a change to the language in its Copyright Transfer Statement.

In October 2008, Springer acquired BioMed Central, the leading global open access publisher. This acquisition, in effect, makes Springer Science+Business Media the world's largest open access publisher.

Since March 2009 Springer has been involved in the Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP), a project funded by the European Commission. This extensive study involves other partners from libraries (Max Planck Digital Library), funding agencies, research institutes (CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research ) and publishers (BioMed Central and Sage Publications) and runs until February 2011: http://project-soap.eu/ 

Contact:
Wim van der Stelt, Executive Vice President of Business Development
Eric Merkel-Sobotta, Executive Vice President Corporate Communications


last update of this page: 1 October 2009