Delivering value for our authors and wider community
Increased usage, greater impact, more real-world outcomes
Katharine Szamuely
Vice President, Open Access
“We now support authors from almost every country to publish openly across more than 3,000 journals, reflecting the global reach of open research.
Our full open access (FOA) portfolio continues to grow and now comprises more than 770 journals, including 48 new launches in 2025. It includes Scientific Reports, the world’s largest full OA journal and Nature Communications, the world’s most highly cited OA journal.
The number of OA articles we publish continues to increase year on year, reflecting researchers’ confidence in our journals and our continued focus on quality and selectivity.
Last year, 63,000+ OA articles were published through transformative agreements. In 2025, we signed 19 new agreements and renewed 17 existing partnerships, including a landmark Open Publishing Agreement with the Big Ten Academic Alliance and our first national agreement in Malaysia, covering all 20 public universities.
As the sector scrutinises how best to achieve OA at scale, our data continue to show the sustained demand and clear, year-on-year impact across regions and disciplines that TAs and other tailored approaches are enabling. Ensuring open publishing works at scale, in real-world conditions.
Our focus remains on scaling OA responsibly. While the transition will not look the same everywhere, locally relevant, evidence-based approaches can provide a route that is both sustainable and scalable. We will continue to work closely with our partners to support this transition and help ensure that no researcher, institution or country is left behind.”
Quality remains key – despite growth in publishing, acceptance rates have fallen from 23.6% in 2021 to 16.3% in 2025, including OA content
Source: Springer Nature data.
OA continues to support global equity – 48% increase in downloads of OA content in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LICs/LMICs)
Source: Counter 5:1.
Highest usage of all mixed model and pure OA publishers for authors publishing in our full OA journals, 7.6 citations on average per 2024 article (full OA)
Source: Dimensions.
Scientific Reports remains the largest OA journal globally and Nature Communications is the most highly cited global journal
Source: Clarivate JCR 2025.
Our content is shaping real‑world outcomes, with 44,300+ articles cited in policy documents
and 75,800+ cited in patents (2018–2025)
Sources: Springer Nature data.
Our full OA journals continue to deliver the highest impact for authors
Authors publishing in Springer Nature’s full OA journals continue to see their content used more than that of other publishers. Citations per full OA article increased by ~21% in 2025 (from 6.3 to 7.6 per article published), demonstrating the strong value of publishing OA with us and the greater impact our journals deliver for authors.
We also saw strong growth across our hybrid journals, with a 14% increase in average citations per published OA article, going from 6.5 to 7.3 for articles published in 2024.
Top five publishers by full OA citations
| No. | Publisher | Average citations per article |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Springer Nature |
7.6
|
| 2 | Mixed-model publisher |
7.4
|
| 3 | Pure OA publisher |
5.4
|
| 4 | Pure OA publisher |
5.2
|
| 5 | Mixed-model publisher |
5.0
|
Source: Counter5.1 – Represents usage total item requests of full OA and hybrid OA articles published between 2005-2025.
Strong growth in reach and usage for our OA books and journals
In 2025, OA journal content (hybrid and full OA) was downloaded more than 3 billion times, a 75% increase on 2024. OA articles saw an average of 1,533 downloads per article, up 48% on the previous year, highlighting the visibility and engagement OA enables.
Full OA content saw downloads rise by 79% from 2024, with average usage of 1,502 downloads per article, while hybrid OA grew by 63%, averaging 1,631 downloads per article.
Downloads of all OA articles (hybrid and FOA) by researchers in LICs and LMICs (as defined by the World bank) increased by 48% from 2024 to 2025. Areas such as India (125,222,188), Vietnam (31,926,369), Egypt (10,551,562), Nigeria (18,291,111) and Philippines (29,652,494) saw the highest number of content downloads.
OA books showed the same growth trend, with downloads up 34% and average usage reaching 36,890 per title, reinforcing sustained demand for high-quality open research and the role publishers play in ensuring trusted research is widely discovered, accessed and used.
Downloads of OA content in LICs published 2019–2025
| Sum of year | Number of downloads (millions) |
|---|---|
| 2019 |
1.4
|
| 2020 |
2.4
|
| 2021 |
3.8
|
| 2022 |
4.9
|
| 2023 |
4.8
|
| 2024 |
4.8
|
| 2025 |
5.7
|
Downloads of OA content in LMICs published 2019–2025
| Sum of year | Number of downloads (millions) |
|---|---|
| 2019 |
46.3
|
| 2020 |
75.1
|
| 2021 |
125.8
|
| 2022 |
138.0
|
| 2023 |
151.4
|
| 2024 |
183.1
|
| 2025 |
272.7
|
Source: Counter 5:1.
Represents usage total item requests of full OA and hybrid OA articles published between 2019 and 2025.
We remain focused on finding a home for all research, supporting impact globally and shaping real world outcomes
We remain focused on supporting impact for researchers and shaping real world outcomes
In 2025, Springer Nature journals were cited more than 18.6 million times, up from 16 million in 2024, with Nature Communications, Nature and Scientific Reports being the top three most cited journals globally. Nature Communication was cited over 1.6 million times, with Nature and Scientific Reports both exceeding 1 million citations in 2025.
Over 63% of journals recorded impact factor increases, with many titles moving into higher tiers or maintaining their position while still delivering growth – demonstrating sustained quality and choice for researchers globally.
In addition, the content we publish continues to shape real‑world outcomes, with 44,300+ articles cited in policy documents and 75,800+ cited in patents (2018-2025).
18.6 million citations
in 2025
Source: Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports 2025 and Springer Nature altmetric data.
Open access at Springer Nature
Growing the pool of knowledge
OA has been a central part of our DNA for over two decades.
Sustainable OA
TAs remain a key lever driving sustainable, equitable OA transition for all.
Spotlight on: Real world impact
OA research continues to have tangible benefits for society and knowledge.
Spotlight on: Regional OA growth
We are committed to working with partners, globally, to ensure a sustainable, tailored, scalable path for all.
What’s next in OA?
Committed to investing in tech and working collaboratively to eliminate barriers, driving forward an inclusive, reproducible, equitable transition to OA.
Built with Shorthand