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.
Authors from participating Alliance campuses can now publish their work openly (i.e., not behind a paywall) in all Springer hybrid journals without paying article processing charges (APCs). The agreement simplifies author workflows, allows for authors to retain rights in their work, and ensures that published articles are immediately open and available to everyone under a Creative Commons license.
The Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Open Publishing Agreement model is an important component of the evolving scholarly publishing landscape and helps to set new standards for fairness, sustainability, and efficiency in the space. By removing administrative overhead burdens and financial barriers, researchers can more easily share their work freely and widely.
Maurice York, Director of Library Initiatives for the Big Ten Academic Alliance, said, “Our Open Publishing Agreements model reflects the priorities articulated by our faculty: to disseminate their scholarship widely through open access in prominent and reputable journals without having to worry about the costs. This made Springer Nature an essential partner, as their titles are recognized for their academic excellence and global reach.”
Unlike traditional open access models, which often rely on publishing quotas or credit systems, under this agreement, faculty, students, and staff can publish without concerns about exhausting allocations or exceeding limits. This includes system and branch campuses currently included in the agreement, as well as those that may join during its term, ensuring broad access for the entire academic community.
Maria Lopes, Vice President of Institutional Sales at Springer Nature, said: “Springer Nature is proud to be the most comprehensive open access research publisher, and we share the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s desire to increase the impact and reach of their authors’ highly valuable research. This is why we were so eager to develop this agreement—a first for us in the Americas.”
Carrie Webster, Vice President of Open Access at Springer Nature, added: “Open science is essential to addressing the world’s urgent challenges, and this agreement with the output coming from world-class research institutions will greatly increase the number of freely available articles that can advance science faster and more rigorously while also enhancing transparency, accessibility, and reusability.”
Beyond publishing, this agreement also grants full read access to the entire Springer Hybrid portfolio across all participating campuses, which includes over 2,200 titles across the Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Adis imprints, as well as Academic Journals on nature.com. Participants include Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Oregon, University of Wisconsin, and the University of Chicago.
Operationally, the contract introduces a radically simplified administrative structure, eliminating multiple legacy agreements and reducing local overhead. The Big Ten Academic Alliance will serve as the central payer for all participating libraries—the absence of APCs results in significantly reduced campus overhead in managing payments. Springer Nature will serve as both service provider and partner, offering automated participating-author identification, dedicated support staff, educational webinars, and marketing tools to assist in local adoption and promotion.
Through this author- and values-centered agreement, the Big Ten Academic Alliance continues to champion dynamic partnerships such as this one with Springer Nature, which advance scholarly communication, reduce costs, increase the impact and reach of research outputs, and promote open access on a global scale.
Campus authors can visit the Alliance’s Springer Nature information page for further details.
