Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a German-British

academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...

company created by the May 2015 merger of

Springer Science+Business Media Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

and

Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Holtzbrinck Publishing Group () is a privately held German company based in Stuttgart which owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies. In 2015, it merge ...

Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in scien ...

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

, and

Macmillan Education Macmillan Education is a publisher of English Language teaching and school curriculum materials. The company is based in London and operates in over 40 countries worldwide. History In 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd was fined GBP 11.3 million by t ...

History

The company originates from a number of journals and publishing houses, notably

Springer-Verlag Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

, which was founded in 1842 by

Julius Springer Julius Springer (10 May 1817 – 17 April 1877) was a German publisher who founded the academic publishing house Springer Science+Business Media (formerly known as Springer-Verlag). Springer-Verlag In 1842, Springer founded the retail bookshop Spr ...

in Berlin (the grandfather of Bernhard Springer who founded

Springer Publishing Springer Publishing Company is an American publishing company of academic journals and books, focusing on the fields of nursing, gerontology, psychology, social work, counseling, public health, and rehabilitation (neuropsychology). It was es ...

in 1950 in New York),

which has published '' Nature'' since 1869, and

, which goes back to

Macmillan Publishers Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

founded in 1843. Springer Nature was formed in 2015 by the merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and Macmillan Education (held by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group) with Springer Science+Business Media (held by

BC Partners BC Partners is a British international investment firm with over $40 billion of assets under management across private equity, credit and real estate in Europe and North America. Its global headquarters are in London. The firm invests across all ...

). Plans for the merger were first announced on 15 January 2015. The transaction was concluded in May 2015 with Holtzbrinck having the majority 53% share. IPO attempts in May 2018 and Autumn 2020 were unfruitful due to unfavorable market conditions.

Current company

After the merger, former Springer Science+Business Media

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Derk Haank Derk may refer to: * Derk (given name), a Dutch masculine given name * Derk, Kohgiluyeh * and Boyer-Ahmad, a village in Iran See also * Dərk * Derk-Elsko * Dirk (disambiguation) * Durk * DYRK DYRK (96.3 FM), broadcasting as 96.3 WRocK, i ...

became CEO of Springer Nature. When he retired by the end of 2017, he was succeeded by

Daniel Ropers Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength"), ...

, the co-founder and long-time CEO of

bol.com Bol.com is a webshop in the Netherlands and offers general merchandising products in categories such as music, film, electronics, toys, jewelry, watches, baby products, gardening, and DIY. As of 2020, the store serves 11 million active customers in ...

. In September 2019, Ropers was replaced by Frank Vrancken Peeters. The company is releasing a number of Policies & Reports, including a Modern Slavery Act statement, a Tax strategy, a

gender pay gap The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted ...

report for Springer Nature’s UK operations, Editorial and publishing policies,

Code of conduct A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization. Companies' codes of conduct A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...

, etc.

Brands

The following major brands belong to the group (see also Subsidiaries): * ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'' *

Springer.com Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

BioMed Central BioMed Central (BMC) is a United Kingdom-based, for-profit scientific open access publisher that produces over 250 scientific journals. All its journals are published online only. BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open a ...

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

* Heinrich Vogel Verlag *

SciGraph SciGraph is a search engine tool developed by Springer Nature. The technology, which is considered a Linked Open Data (LOD) platform, collects information that covers the research landscape, which includes research projects, publications, conferen ...

Controversies

In 2017, the company agreed to block access to hundreds of articles on its Chinese site, cutting off access to articles on Tibet, Taiwan, and China's political elite. The company retracted a paper in 2019, in its journal ''BMC Emergency Medicine'' due to dubious peer-review process (a herpetologist could have denied the publication of the paper). In August 2020, Springer Nature was reported to have rejected the publication of an article at the behest of its co-publisher,

Wenzhou Medical University Wenzhou Medical University (WMU）; ), designated as a key university in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, is an institution of higher learning under the leadership of Zhejiang Provincial Government. History Wenzhou Medical University (WMU) is a higher inst ...

, from a Taiwanese doctor because the word "China" was not placed after "Taiwan." In July 2020, Springer Nature retracted a paper in the journal ''

Society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

'' due to dubious review process and criticism regarding racism. In November 2021, Springer Nature retracted 44 nonsense papers from the ''Arabian Journal of Geosciences'' after a lapse in the peer review process.

Subsidiaries

References

External links

* Academic publishing companies Multinational publishing companies Publishing companies established in 2015 Holtzbrinck Publishing Group {{Publish-company-stub