Springer 2022-2024 open publishing program
Update March 19, 2025: the program was halted after the pool of 1466 articles for 2024 was exhausted. The program is now expected to resume in late April 2025 after a new Springer contract is signed. List of journals that will be covered by Springer’s open access publishing program in 2025.
Program description in 2024:
In April 2024, Springer’s open access publishing program was relaunched with a pool of 1363 articles (in November this year, 89 articles were bought back and 14 spare articles were added; it was not possible to increase the pool further in 2024 due to procurement law restrictions), with a change in the list of journals.
The program is intended for correspondent authors affiliated with Polish academic institutions registered for the Springer national license. Affiliation of the corresponding author should be given in the headline of the article with an accuracy sufficient to unambiguously identify with this list:
https://vls.icm.edu.pl/zasady/2024/Springer/Lista_instytucji_Springer_OA2024_29032024.xlsx
The corresponding author may provide more than one affiliation in the article and it is enough if at least one of them complies with the list. Affiliation of possible co-authors of the article does not matter for the program.
Detailed rules of the program operation are available on the website of the Virtual Science Library:
https://wbn.icm.edu.pl/publikowanie-otwarte/#springer_oa
Information about the program is also available on the Poland Read and Publish (Springer Compact) agreement website:
Journals and type of articles covered by the open publishing program
The program allows authors affiliated with Polish academic institutions to publish, on an open-access basis (CC-BY license), a certain number of articles per year in Springer journals, see list (recommended browser: Microsoft Edge):
https://vls.icm.edu.pl/zasady/2025/Springer/Publishing_List_ICM_Poland_2025.xlsx
The program includes 1,992 journals from the Springer core collection and 20 ADIS journals.
The program includes Original Paper, Review Paper, Brief Communication and Continuing Education articles.
Article submission for the program
The procedure deciding about open publishing begins after a positive review of the article, when the corresponding author receives an e-mail from the publishing house informing about the acceptance of the article for publication. The message will contain a link to complete the publication process. The link will take you to a page where you will need to click “Request login email”, after which the author will receive a second email with a link to the Open Access Systems Solution web form, which should be filled in by the corresponding author, see presentation of the form:
https://vls.icm.edu.pl/zasady/2021/Springer/OA/OASiS_rollout_comms_slidedeck_comm_ICM.pdf
Note: the presentation is intended only for institutions authorized to use the program and can be downloaded only from the IP numbers of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences or from the IP numbers of other academic institutions registered in the Library of Virtual Science (WBN).
If, at the time of filling in the form, the number of articles in the program for a given year is not yet exhausted and the system recognizes the selected institution as belonging to the program, the form will display the information “Open access at no cost to you” (see presentation, page 6), which applies to a national agreement covering all Polish academic institutions registered for the Springer license. After clicking on “Yes, submit for approval”, the work will be sent to the local administrator for review, of which the author will be notified by email (see presentation, p. 8). The author will be informed about the result of the verification by another email (pages 9 and 10).
The Open Access Systems Solution form is used by Springer to support most hybrid journals, with the exception of some journals that have been marked as custom in the journal list in column F:
https://vls.icm.edu.pl/zasady/2024/Springer/Springer_Publishing_List2024_08042024.xlsx
For these journals, the corresponding author will receive special instructions from the editorial office.
Contact
Any questions regarding open publishing in hybrid journals can be directed to Springer Nature at oa.verification@springer.com and to WBN at wbn@icm.edu.pl.
Contact at SGGW – Open Access Advocacy Librarians PhD Agnieszka Adamiec, MSc Dominika Semeniuk, tel. 22 59 35 720; e-mail – otwartanauka@sggw.edu.pl.