Springer Nature has signed its largest institutional OA book deal with the Max Planck Society through the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL). The agreement covers all Springer Nature book imprints, across a broad range of disciplines, providing OA funding to affiliated authors from over 80 Max Planck Institutes.
This agreement marks the fifth OA book partnership1 and the second2 and largest national OA book deal for the publisher to date3 - a pivotal step in driving forward the sustainable transition to OA for book authors. With research showing that OA books are downloaded ten times more often and cited 2.4 times4 more than non-OA books, Max Planck authors publishing as part of this agreement will benefit from the even greater reach and impact of their work.
The initial three-year agreement, live as of January 1, 2022, will enable authors from all 86 Max Planck Institutes to receive a discount on the standard Book Publishing Charge (BPC) to publish their book OA. MPDL will contribute central funding toward the coverage of the discounted BPC, lowering the costs for authors even further. The discount and funding will be available across all of the publisher's book imprints, under a CC BY licence, ensuring their work is freely accessible and discoverable to all communities across science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences. They will be available to readers around the world via Springer Nature's content platform SpringerLink.
Springer Nature continues to play an active role in the advancement of OA publishing for books through its deals and partnerships, supporting all authors, regardless of discipline, location or funding, to publish OA. The publisher is the largest OA book publisher and pioneer in OA book models since the launch of its OA books programme in 2012. Since then the publisher has published over 1,500 OA books, with its book chapters having been downloaded over 200 million times.5
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