Library Technology Guides

Springer Nature appoints Anna Troise as President, North America. Springer Nature announced the appointment of Anna Troise as President, North America, effective March 9. Troise will be based in the company's New York office and will report directly to Steven Inchcoombe, President, Research. In her new role as President, North America, Troise will lead Springer Nature's external presence and growth agenda for the Research business in the U.S. This new leadership role underscores Springer Nature's dedication to advancing the impact of American research. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature helps streamline researcher workflows and boost open sharing with AI-powered protocols. Springer Nature, the world's largest publisher of protocols, has made open sharing easier for researchers by integrating new generative AI-powered features into its protocols.io platform, reducing manual effort and supporting researchers with more efficient workflows. These enhancements will help scientists collaborate globally and advance reproducible research by enabling protocols to be automatically created, providing multilingual translation, and improving discoverability – saving them time. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature expands its portfolio of research integrity tools to detect non-standard phrases. Springer Nature has launched a new tool for use across submissions to its journals and books to detect non-standard phrases in submitted manuscripts, marking the latest step in its ongoing mission to uphold research integrity and safeguard the scholarly record. The tool works by detecting unusual phrases that have been awkwardly constructed or are excessively convoluted, for example ‘counterfeit consciousness' instead of ‘artificial intelligence'. Such phrases are indicators that authors have used paraphrasing tools to evade plagiarism detection. If a number of non-standard phrases are identified by the tool, the submission will be withdrawn. [Full Announcement].

Big Ten Academic Alliance and Springer Nature announce first-ever unlimited open access publishing agreement in the Americas. The Big Ten Academic Alliance has signed a two-year Open Publishing Agreement with Springer Nature, making it the publisher's first truly unlimited and uncapped open access agreement in the Americas. This is the Big Ten Academic Alliance's fifth Open Publishing Agreement or OPA, and its most expansive to date. This groundbreaking deal offers all authors across participating institutions unlimited open access publishing in Springer's hybrid journals portfolio—with no fees, no caps, no limits, and no hassle—while at the same time uniformly expanding access to those titles regardless of past local subscriptions. [Full Announcement].

Cassyni extends partnership with Springer Nature to deepen researcher engagement by running research seminars at scale. Cassyni, the platform for research seminars, and Springer Nature, a global research publisher, today announced the expansion of their partnership to enable more journals to build engagement with their research communities through online seminars. Springer Nature's Research Communities, powered in partnership with Zapnito, provide a free online platform for researchers and peers to connect, generate discussions and explore research findings that matter to them. The extended partnership better integrates Cassyni's offerings into the platform meaning any journal can easily set up seminars to promote new journal issues, key research articles and calls for papers. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature: Authors, editors and peer reviewers supported with launch of new AI tool. Springer Nature has launched a new AI-driven tool to help editors and peer reviewers by automating a number of editorial quality checks and alerting editors to potentially unsuitable manuscripts so that they can be held back from peer review. Developed in-house, this is the latest AI tool planned for integration into Springer Nature's next generation article submission and processing platform, Snapp, following the inclusion in 2024 of two AI tools to identify fake content. Working in collaboration with researchers and designed to seamlessly integrate with Snapp, it is currently being tested and verified on over 100 OA journals, including Scientific Reports the largest OA journal in the world, and across over 100,000 submissions. [Full Announcement].

Maria Castresana joins Springer Nature as new Chief People Officer. Maria Castresana has joined Springer Nature as its new Chief People Officer reporting to the Chief Executive. Maria takes over from Gregor Karolus, Chief HR Officer following his retirement at the end of October. As Chief People Officer, she is part of Springer Nature's Executive Committee. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature creates role of Chief Digital Officer to further drive AI and digital transformation for research community. Springer Nature has created a new senior role to drive the further development of its digital experience for the research community, making full use of leading-edge technologies and AI. Saskia Steinacker will join Springer Nature from Bayer on 1st November 2024 as Chief Digital Officer, reporting to the Chief Executive. This forms part of the company's wider commitment to using sustainable and innovative technology to develop new products, platforms and services for the community, supporting them as they advance scientific discovery and find solutions to the world's pressing challenges. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature unveils two new AI tools to protect research integrity. Increased instances of fraudulent research are affecting the academic publishing community. Following successful pilots, Springer Nature is rolling out two new bespoke AI tools to support the identification of papers that contain AI-generated fake content and / or problematic images - two indicators of research integrity issues. Developed with Slimmer AI Science division, which Springer Nature acquired in 2023, one tool, Geppetto, detects AI-generated content, a classic indication of paper mill activity. Geppetto works by dividing the paper up into sections and uses its own algorithms to check the consistency of the text in each section. The sections are then given a score based on the probability that the text in them has been AI generated. The higher the score, the greater the probability of there being problems, initiating a human check by Springer Nature staff. Geppetto is already responsible for identifying hundreds of fake papers soon after submission, preventing them from being published – and from taking up editors' and peer reviewers' valuable time. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature makes open research easier for authors via simplified protocols offering. Following the acquisition of protocols.io in 2023, Springer Nature has announced the migration of all protocols currently hosted on Protocols Exchange to the innovative platform, making protocols.io the home for the publishers' fully open protocols. Springer Nature hosts the world's largest collection of protocols of biomedical and life sciences protocols covering over 155,000 protocols and methods. The transition enables authors to benefit from greater functionality and the dynamic offerings of a more collaborative platform, helping them to share, develop, and make their methods open in ways not possible with traditional platforms. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature developing new peer review platform to better meet needs of academic community and support growth in OA publishing. Springer Nature has embarked on a bold new project to build the next generation in peer review platforms. Being designed in-house and in stages, adapting to user feedback as part of its ongoing development, it puts editors, authors and reviewers firmly at the centre. Snapp (Springer Nature's Article Processing Platform) aims to improve the publishing process and provide a more agile response to the growth in Open Access (OA). Its rollout marks a key investment from the company in the future of publishing. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature expands its AI capability with acquisition of Slimmer AI's Science division. Springer Nature has signed a definitive agreement which will see the Netherlands' Slimmer AI's Science division join the company. Springer Nature and Slimmer AI have been working together since 2015. This latest acquisition follows that of protocols.io, a secure platform for developing and sharing reproducible methods, and the launch of Curie, Springer Nature's AI-powered scientific writing assistant. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature's latest Transformative Agreement an important step in global transition to OA. Springer Nature has agreed a Transformative Agreement in Hong Kong with all member libraries of the Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee. This is the publisher's first TA in this important region and, with over 700 articles published OA each year, will be the region's largest TA. With China now leading the world in terms of research output, it also marks a significant step forward in the global transition to OA. The three year agreement, effective from 1st January 2024, will allow affiliated researchers to publish OA in more than 1,900 hybrid journals published by Springer Nature. As part of the agreement, participating institutions retain access to all the journals they have subscribed to. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature introduces Curie, its AI-powered scientific writing assistant. Springer Nature announced a new AI-powered in-house writing assistant to support researchers, particularly those whose first language is not English, in their scientific writing. Global research shows that it takes non-native English speaking scientists 51% more time to write a paper. Curie combines the power of large language models with specialised AI digital editing developed in-house and designed specifically for scientific writing. Unlike generalist AI writing apps, Curie focuses on the unique pain points of researchers in their professional writing, including translation to English and English language editing to address grammatical errors and improve phrasing and word choice. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature continues open research drive with acquisition of protocols.io. Springer Nature, the world's leading publisher of protocols, has acquired protocols.io - a secure platform for developing and sharing reproducible methods. Scientific advancement depends on data credibility and work that can be verified, built upon and reproduced. Sharing all elements of research, including data, methods and materials, and even negative results, makes research more efficient, enables reproducibility and therefore builds trust in science. Studies show that lack of awareness of existing work or negative results leads to unnecessary duplication and could waste up to €26 billion in Europe alone. By laying out detailed step-by-step instructions for research methods, aiming to standardise the process, ensure accuracy of results and enabling research to be reproduced, protocols have a vital role to play in addressing this. With protocols.io joining Springer Nature's leading protocol offering, researchers will now have the option to make their protocols openly available on the protocols.io platform as well as publishing them in peer-reviewed publications. [Full Announcement].

Steven Inchcoombe takes on new role of President, Research at Springer Nature while Harsh Jegadeesan moves to become Chief Publishing Officer. Effective March 1st, Steven Inchcoombe becomes President, Research at Springer Nature reflecting changes in the global research ecosystem as it transitions to open access. In this newly created role, Inchcoombe will be responsible for building even stronger relationships with key global institutional, funder, and governmental stakeholders and growing Springer Nature's research business in high growth research countries. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature continues its focus on tailored solutions for academics with acquisition of researcher-created writing tool, TooWrite. Springer Nature announces the acquisition of innovative digital writing aid, TooWrite. This is the latest addition to the publisher's growing portfolio of digital solutions for academics designed to help improve their working lives. Developed by researchers for researchers, the TooWrite platform streamlines and simplifies scientific writing by guiding researchers through the process as if they were answering a questionnaire. In addition, expert how-to guides are attached to each question, supporting researchers as if they had an editor by their side. By structuring it in this step by step way, researchers' time is freed up by making the writing process more efficient. Currently available to support the writing of abstracts, it is being developed to support the writing of full research papers. [Full Announcement].

Nature announces support for authors from over 70 countries to publish open access. Primary research from authors from over 70 countries classified by the World Bank as low-income or lower-middle-income economies accepted for publication in either Nature or one of the Nature research journals (e.g. Nature Chemistry, Nature Sustainability) can now be published Gold open access at no cost. This move recognises that local funding is rarely available for publishing OA in specialist journals like Nature, whose characteristics such as in-house editorial teams and low acceptance rates make it difficult for authors from these countries who are less well-funded. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature completes acquisition of Research Square Company. After a long partnership and period of partial ownership of Research Square Company, Springer Nature has increased its investment in Research Square Company to take full ownership. RSC comprises American Journal Experts, which provides best-in-class AI-powered and professionally delivered author solutions, and Research Square, the world's number one multi-disciplinary preprint platform. [Full Announcement].

Springer Nature continues open access drive in Latin America. Springer Nature has agreed its first transformative agreement in Mexico with partner Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), in Mexico. The TA is also the largest institutional TA for Latin America to date, showing extended support for open access (OA) across the Americas. It follows the publishers' first TAs in Canada and Latin America - Colombia - earlier this year, and its landmark agreement with the University of California in 2020. These agreements show clear commitment across all Americas to OA and increase the reach and impact for their research outputs. [Full Announcement].