Springer Nature and OpenAIRE have signed an agreement to build an Open Science-driven scholarly communication record that brings research and data closer together.

27 January 2020

Starting immediately, Springer Nature will provide OpenAIRE, an EU organisation that facilitates openness in scholarly communication, access to its full-text articles and chapters, regardless of their open access status and access rights. This will enable OpenAIRE to extract links from articles, research data and other scholarly outputs using text and data mining algorithms. Such links between research objects can then be used by both Springer Nature and OpenAIRE to provide searches and statistics through their respective portals and will be made freely available via nature.com, link.springer.com and OpenAIRE Explore and Scholexplorer. Through this collaboration, the partners aim to foster discoverability of datasets linked to publications and vice versa, which advances research by supporting reuse, making datasets easier to find and access.

Although there has been a tremendous growth in the amount of research information available, this does not always equate to an increase in knowledge. By applying value-added tools to enrich information and links, researchers are able to get a clearer and richer overview of the research they are analysing, for example, related datasets, project information and even the technical tools used to carry out the research. This collaboration uses the power of mining to tools and to extract and organise information from a large corpus of publications which creates a thriving and rich research resource.

Grace Baynes, VP Research Data & New Product Development, Springer Nature, said: “By opening up research - both articles and data - and the connections between them, we hope to facilitate interdisciplinary research, and allow researchers to communicate and collaborate more effectively. Springer Nature is firmly committed to furthering Open Research including Open Data. Making datasets more discoverable to readers supports usage and citation, providing authors with credit for sharing their data and making it more worthwhile. We are delighted to collaborate with OpenAIRE to create a joined up scholarly research landscape, and hope we can build the evidence base for the value of linking datasets to publications.”

Natalia Manola, Managing Director of OpenAIRE, said: “The mission of this collaboration is to support the development of new areas of knowledge, respond to the existing needs of the research community, and to make information accessible around the globe. As a European pioneer that fosters cultural change to Open Science practices, we are delighted to be cooperating with the most significant open access research publisher and enable promising outcomes for the research and development, and open science communities.”

Springer Nature is a leading research, educational and professional publisher, providing quality content to our communities through a range of innovative platforms, products and services. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals and resources reach millions of people – helping researchers, students, teachers and professionals to discover, learn and achieve more. Through our family of brands, we aim to serve and support the research, education and professional communities by putting them at the heart of all we do, delivering the highest possible standards in content and technology, and helping shape the future of publishing for their benefit and for society overall. Visit: springernature.com/group and follow @SpringerNature.

OpenAIRE A.M.K.Ε. is an Open Science infrastructure in Europe. It was established to ensure a permanent presence and structure for European-wide Open Science support. Follow us on @openaire_eu

Contact Springer Nature: Elizabeth Hawkins, Communications, elizabeth.hawkins'at'springernature.com

Contact OpenAIRE: Paolo Manghi, Technical Director, paolo.manghi'at'isti.cnr.it

Download the press release.