April 2024 – NERL, a consortium representing some of America’s leading research institutions, and Springer Nature, a global leader in research publishing, have agreed to a new three-year open publishing agreement. The deal provides seven NERL member institutions with read access to the entire corpus of Springer journals and permits eligible authors to publish open access, with fees covered, in hybrid journals across the Springer portfolio.
The agreement supports NERL’s Core Values of transparency, sustainability, equity, reproducibility and flexibility and upholds Springer Nature’s commitment to Open Access publishing. Participating institutions include Rutgers University, Syracuse University, Temple University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Miami and Vanderbilt University.
“I am thrilled the NorthEAST Research Libraries consortium at the Center for Research Libraries has negotiated a read and publish agreement with Springer Nature,” said Scott Warren, Syracuse University Libraries’ Senior Associate Dean for Research Excellence and co-chair of the NERL negotiation team. “NERL and CRL have a long history of bringing many of the nation’s leading research libraries together to innovate and collaborate at scale and this new three-year agreement is just the latest instance.” Warren added, “Enabling authors from this select group of seven research universities to publish their groundbreaking scholarship openly will have an immediate impact, so we’re looking forward to implementing this pilot agreement with Springer Nature.”
“Our researchers will benefit significantly from this exciting agreement,” Vanderbilt University Librarian Jon Shaw said. “By offering broader access to leading journals as well as the ability to publish in many of those same journals without incurring costly fees, the agreement is opening opportunities for scholars to explore new ideas and to expand the impact of their research.”
“Springer Nature’s Transformative Agreements have had a proven impact on the transition to open science, and it is through exciting new TAs, like this one with NERL, that we can ensure researchers globally can benefit from increased discoverability, collaboration, citation and usage of their work. Our agreement with NERL is our 9th in the US and is a key indication of the growing commitment, outside of Europe, to achieve a truly open and sustainable research environment. We look forward to working with NERL to drive forward this shared goal.” says, Maria Lopes, Springer Nature’s Vice President of Research Sales for North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Greg Eow, President of the Center for Research Libraries, the administrative host of NERL, added: “We are proud NERL remains a leader in the open access movement, committed to making scholarly resources more available to all. NERL members’ service and creativity on this agreement persisted. We look forward to continued collaboration towards mutually beneficial work in this space.”
About NERL
A national leader in negotiated licensing, NERL maximizes effective and sustainable access to content for its member institutions. By building and supporting alliances between higher education and the information industry, NERL serves as an advocate for the collective power and influence of academic libraries and their parent institutions.
About Springer Nature
For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies. As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American.
