Springer Nature advances discovery by publishing trusted research, supporting the development of new ideas and championing open science. We are committed to playing our part in accelerating solutions to address the world’s urgent challenges.
CAUL's agreement with Springer Nature covers journals from the Springer, Palgrave and Adis imprints, as well as the Academic Journals on Nature.com.
The 47 university libraries in Australia and New Zealand and seven governmental libraries that participate in the agreement enable their affiliated researchers to publish their research articles open access in more than 2,000 Springer Nature journals.
Further information on this agreement is available from Springer Nature.
This page was last updated on 7 February 2025.
The following institutions participate in this agreement:
Authors who do not see their institution listed above should contact library staff to enquire further.
This agreement allows authors from participating institutions to publish in most of Springer Nature's hybrid journals without the need for any transactional open access article processing charge (APC).
This is a capped agreement. This agreement provides for an allowance of 3513 articles by authors from institutions participating in the agreement to be published open access in 2025 with no transactional APCs.
Articles accepted from 1/1/2025 are eligible to be published open access under this agreement.
The following article types are eligible for open access under this agreement:
As defined by the publisher, the eligible author is:
“Eligible Authors” means Affiliated Authors who have (i) signed one of the then current open access publishing agreements used by the publisher of the journal to which the author is submitting an article for publication under an Open Access License; and (ii) for whom the participating institution has confirmed their status as an Affiliated Author.
“Affiliated Authors” means authors who are teaching and research staff employed by or otherwise accredited to the participating institution or who are students enrolled at or accredited to a participating institution. In the case of articles published by multiple authors only the author corresponding with the Springer Nature at the time of acceptance qualifies as an Affiliated Author.
Responsible corresponding authors must include a participating institution as one of their affiliations to benefit from this agreement.
Authors will be identified as eligible for open access publishing by their:
Responsible corresponding authors must use their institutional email address when submitting an article for publication.
Responsible corresponding authors should not use personal email addresses (e.g. Hotmail, Gmail). Doing so may result in delayed approval of the article or the article may not be approved to be published open access under the terms of the agreement.
No other APC discounts are offered under this agreement.
The agreement allows for publishing in most journals. The complete title list is available online. If you wish to publish open access, please check to ensure that your desired journal is included. Nature portfolio titles not included as per advice from CAUL.
Hybrid journals that 'flip' to OA during the course of this agreement will remain available for OA publishing for the duration of the agreement.
Articles from authors at participating institutions may be published under the following Creative Commons licenses:
Authors retain all rights as per the CC license.
CC BY is the main licence type offered by Springer Nature journals. Other CC licence types may be accommodated by request. CC-BY-NC-ND is increasingly available across journals per author demand.
The Creative Commons licenses allow reuse (some with conditions) while protecting the authors' rights of acknowledgment as authors. Authors retain copyright.
Researchers who require a CC BY-NC-ND licence should contact the editors for the relevant journal.
Please note the only option provided for ADIS titles is CC BY-NC.
Researchers who require other CC BY licence types should contact the editors for the relevant journal.
Further information about licenses is available on the publisher's website.
The Creative Commons licenses allow reuse (some with conditions) while protecting the authors' rights of acknowledgment as authors.
Article approvals are managed by CAUL via a custom publisher platform.
Springer Nature does charge additional fees for page and/or colour fees. Authors should always check each journal’s submission guidelines to ensure that they will not be subject to any other fees or charges.
The following instructions for authors have been provided by the publisher. Further details are available on the publisher’s website.
The workflow can be broken down to a 5 step process
1. Submission
Manuscript is submitted. Submitting author provides e.g. FundRef and ORCID information. Article category is assigned.
Peer review is conducted.2. Editorial Acceptance
After editorial acceptance, the corresponding author is able to identify themselves as affiliated to a member institution3. Identification
Corresponding author identifies themselves as connected to a member institution. The institution's OA agreement eligibility determines if the journal and article type are in scope for OA publication.4. Verification
If eligible, the article details are sent to CAUL for final verification and approval5. Publication
The author can now complete the remainder of the production process and the article is published open access.
Example screenshot(s):
Please email orsupport@springernature.com for questions regarding this agreement. Please include your full name, institution, article title, journal name and DOI (if available), and state the reason for your enquiry.
Please contact library staff at your institution for questions related to this agreement. They can provide advice on using the CAUL Open Access Agreements.
