What is open access?
Open access publications are freely and permanently available online to anyone with an internet connection.
As such, every article appearing in any SpringerOpen journal and any book published with SpringerOpen is 'open access', and published under Creative Commons licenses. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access (OA) material. Under Creative Commons licenses, authors retain copyright of their articles.
To learn more about OA licences visit our licensing and copyright guide.
What are the benefits of open access publishing?
- Free availability thanks to unrestricted online access
​Open access publications are freely available online to anyone. This maximizes visibility, and thus the uptake and use of the work published - Authors retain copyright
The use of a Creative Commons license enables authors/editors to retain copyright to their work. Publications can be reused and redistributed under the terms of the licence, and as long as the original author is correctly attributed. - High quality and rigorous peer review
Open access publications run through the same peer review, production and publishing processes similar to journals and books published under the traditional subscription-based model do. - Rapid publication
A streamlined and easy to use online submission and production process enables quick review, approval and publication. - No space constraints
Publishing online means unlimited space for supplementary material including figures, extensive data and video footage. - Compliance with open access mandates
Open access publications can comply with open access mandates from funding sources or academic institutions in the fastest and easiest way. Final articles can be deposited into bibliographic databases and institutional repositories without any embargo periods - Citation tracking and inclusion in bibliographic databases
Open access journals are tracked for impact factors and are deposited into bibliographic databases and institutional repositories without any embargo period just as traditional journals.
How does the business side of open access work?
Open access journals and books operate under a reversed business model to the traditional subscription-based publishing model. Instead of charging users a fee to read the content, they charge an open access fee at the beginning of the publication process and this enables all the content to be made freely available. The author is responsible for making or arranging the payment. Usually the authors do not have to pay the fee themselves but can rely on the institutions and funders, who take on the involved fees in various ways:
- By establishing a central open access fund (e.g. Harvard University)
- By making open access fees part of their general funding (e.g. National Institutes of Health, US)
- By paying open access fees as part of a membership model (e.g. Max Planck Society)
Together with BioMed Central, Springer offers an Open Access Membership Program, which enables institutions, societies and funders to actively support open access by removing some or all of the publication cost from their individual researchers when publishing with BioMed Central or SpringerOpen. We currently have over 500 members in more than 50 countries.
Learn more about our membership program or find out whether your institution is a member.
We also offer a free open access funding support service for authors. To discover more about what APC funding may be available to you, visit our OA funding and policy support page.