Late reprieve allows scientists with UK grants to publish in Nature

Academics supported by UK research council grants will not be barred from using public money to publish in Nature after a last-minute deal was struck to allow them to publish open access in the prestigious title.

From this month, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will only allow its funding to pay for open access publishing in titles that meet its definition of being a “transformative journal”. While Nature owner Springer Nature has committed to transitioning the majority of its imprints to open access, Nature and several other titles did not meet UKRI’s definition of transformative journals and were excluded from a Jisc-approved list of journals.

After months of uncertainty about whether Nature would be off-limits to thousands of UK researchers, who would have needed to source other non-UKRI funds to finance publication fees, the situation has finally been resolved after a temporary deal was announced on the day that UKRI’s new open access policy took effect.

In a statement sent to universities on 1 April, Nick Campbell, vice-president (academic affairs) at Nature Portfolio and Springer Nature, said that he wanted to make it “clear that publishing OA in any Nature journal is compliant with the new UKRI OA policy”.

“The policy applies to submissions from today and the interim measure we’ve agreed with Jisc means that any relevant paper that your researchers publish in these journals can use UKRI OA funds to pay the APC [article processing charge].”

Nature announced that it would charge authors £8,290 (€9,500 or $11,390) to make their work free to read.

Dr Campbell added that the temporary deal would last for the remainder of 2022 and that Springer Nature expects “that a transformative agreement with Jisc will be in place from January 2023, which will replace the interim measure that we’ve agreed”.

The short-term deal is likely to focus attention on how far Springer Nature may be willing to lower its Nature APC in any future deal or whether UK researchers are willing to accept not publishing in Nature – one of the world’s most highly cited and prestigious science titles.

David Price, vice-provost (research) at UCL, said he was “not concerned at all” that UK researchers might not feature in Nature. “Publishing in Nature is an ego trip for a lot of researchers – I’ve published myself before but it’s a very idiosyncratic journal and publishing in it isn’t a guarantee of quality,” he added.

The current Nature APC is “unforgivable”, continued Professor Price, who said he believed that Springer Nature would “fall into line” on the issue of costs in open access.

In a statement, Springer Nature said it “shares UKRI and Jisc’s goals of enabling a full transition to immediate OA for primary research”.

The “lack of a formally agreed funding mechanism” for Nature and other titles had been “concerning for potential authors and so, in recognition of our desire to put in place a transformative agreement with UK institutions, Springer Nature will guarantee a compliant route to publication for UKRI-funded corresponding authors submitting to these titles from 1st April until 31st December 2022, enabling us to register them as Jisc-approved transformative journals," it added.

“As a result, these authors will be able to publish in compliance with UKRI policy and may even use available funds if desired to make the final published version immediately available."

In practice, it would mean that "for submissions made during this period, UKRI funded corresponding authors will be able to self-archive their accepted manuscript in line with UKRI OA policy," it added, which alllowed Nature and other titles to "meet the JISC requirements for transformative journals" and that  "authors will also be able to access UKRI funds to support the APC to publish the [gold] OA."

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com