Springer 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:

https://vls.icm.edu.pl/zasady/2026/Springer/springer_publishing_list_2026.xlsx

The program in 2026 includes 1,913 hybrid journals from Springer’s core collection, 62 Springer Open journals (which switched from a hybrid to a fully open model after 2022), and 20 ADIS hybrid journals. Authors submitting their articles to fully open-access journals covered by the program should be aware of the risk that the article may be accepted after the 2026 pool has been exhausted and will need to be self-funded by the author (for hybrid journals, the subscription publication option remains available).

The program covers Original Papers, Review Papers, Brief Communications, and Continuing Education articles. The program does not cover Editorial Notes, News, or Letters.

The program covers the Article Processing Charge, but does not cover optional additional fees for color figures, etc.

Note: The journal “Advances in Therapy” charges a mandatory Rapid Service Fee, which is not covered by the program. It is the only journal in the program that charges such a mandatory fee.

Once an article has been accepted for publication, the corresponding author receives an email from the publisher containing a link to the “Publishing and Rights” online form, as described in the “Author Eligibility Workflow” presentation (pp. 8–18). In the form, the author selects their country (p. 9) and is then informed of the APC fee for publishing an open-access article in the journal (p. 10). The author then confirms the affiliation provided when submitting the article to the editorial office (p. 11) or selects a new affiliation from the list of institutions (p. 12). The affiliation selected by the author in the form should be one of the affiliations listed for the author in the article, with the exact language version (the list in the form contains only English versions of the names of Polish institutions). If the institution indicated by the author in the form is covered by a Springer national license agreement and if, at the time of filling out the form, the pool of articles in the program for the given year has not yet been exhausted, the system will recognize the selected institution as eligible for the program, and the form will display the message “Your article with open access – without costs” (p. 13). In this situation, the form will automatically route the article to the program and ask the author to provide additional information and consents (pp. 16–17). If the institution is not covered by a national license agreement or if the article quota for the program for that year has already been exhausted, the form offers the author the option of publishing under a subscription model or an open-access model at their own expense (pp. 14–15). Once the author completes the form (p. 18) and the article is submitted to the journal, the publisher will send information about the article to the local administrator at the institution to verify the author’s affiliation. If the administrator confirms the affiliation, the APC fee for the article will be automatically covered by the national license fee paid to Springer by the ICM from MNiSW funds, and the author will be asked by the publisher to approve the final version of the article (pp. 19–20).

The procedure described above is used by Springer to manage most hybrid journals, with the exception of approximately 100 journals that are marked as “Non-standard” in the “Journal: Hybrid Specific Workflow” column of the 2026 catalog. For these journals, the corresponding author will receive specific instructions from the editorial office.

The „Publishing and rights” form only offers the standard CC BY open licence type. However, if an author wishes to publish his/her article under a CC BY-NC licence, he/she should notify the publisher at ORSupport@springernature.com at the time of or immediately after the first submission of the article to the journal. Upon acceptance of such an article, the author will receive a special form for the non-standard licence from the publisher. In the non-standard cases described above, the article information is also sent to the local administrator at the institution for affiliation verification.

Any questions regarding open publishing in hybrid journals can be directed to Springer Nature at oa.verification@springernature.com and to WBN at wbn@icm.edu.pl.

Contact at SGGW:
Open Science Department Main Library
PhD Agnieszka Adamiec, MSc Dominika Semeniuk, tel. 22 59 35 720; e-mail – otwartanauka@sggw.edu.pl