Spotlight on integrity
To accelerate the next phase of the transition to OA, we’re investing strongly in technology and AI, with a particular focus on protecting the integrity and trust of research
We work with over 174,000 editors and 1.2 million independent peer reviewers who share our commitment to rigour and excellence.
To solve the world’s biggest challenges, we all need research that’s reliable, trustworthy and can be built on by scientists and innovators. At a time when science is increasingly under threat from fraud and misconduct, safeguarding integrity is our highest priority.
We are doing this in several ways:
Springer Nature research integrity team
Our research integrity group advises our editors, reviewers, and authors on best practices and ethical conduct in research. In 2023 we rolled out new AI-powered tools that are helping us spot fraud and manipulation in articles, and introduced additional training for editors on the fundamentals of publication best practice, and on how to resolve research integrity problems when they arise.
Industry collaboration
We’re driving and supporting improved practices across the industry. We played a key part in establishing the STM Integrity Hub, a publisher-driven initiative to protect research integrity, and our employees play an active role in its operations, including chairing its governance board. In October 2023, the hub launched a pilot programme to detect duplicate submissions, which can be an indicator of research malpractice across multiple journals, publishers and submission systems.
Utilising the latest technologies
Besides our quality-control checks, we’re using the latest technologies, including AI, to identify unethical behaviour. In 2023, we launched Geppetto, an AI-enabled tool that trawls submissions across all our journals for indicators of suspicious text, started testing SnappShot, which screens for manipulated images, and following our close relationship with Slimmer AI, acquired its Science division to expand our existing in-house expertise and safeguard integrity by automating checks for plagiarism. We continue to add to our toolbox of AI-powered solutions that are helping advance discovery, promote equity and protect integrity.
Industry training and workshops
To support researchers with the adoption of best practice, we initiated a series of global surveys and researcher-led projects to understand the integrity-related needs of researchers. We also created more free online training resources, including a dedicated Nature Masterclass course called Research Integrity: Publication Ethics. We also updated and reviewed our editorial policies to promote better research practices and encourage researchers to share data, increase transparency and reproducibility, improve citation diversity and promote responsible authorship methods.
More about our commitment to research integrity can be found in our
Annual Progress Report and on our research integrity pages.
Open Access at Springer Nature
Ensuring equitable OA
We work to eliminate barriers to creating, discovering and using knowledge
Spotlight on TAs
Springer Nature TAs powered 7x more gold OA articles than via authors choosing to publish OA in 2023, while not being part of a TA
Investing in technology to advance OA
We are committed to investing in technology to provide a streamlined, valuable experience, enabling researchers to advance discovery
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