Springer Nature
Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group[1][2] is a German-British academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macmillan Education.[3]
Company type
Privately held Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien with an Aktiengesellschaft as general partner
2015
London (global)
Berlin (corporate)
New York City (sales)
Worldwide
Frank Vrancken Peeters (CEO)
US$ 2.1 billion (2022)
- Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (53%)
- BC Partners (47%)
10,000 (2019)
History[edit]
The company originates from several journals and publishing houses, notably Springer-Verlag, which was founded in 1842 by Julius Springer in Berlin[4] (the grandfather of Bernhard Springer who founded Springer Publishing in 1950 in New York),[5] Nature Publishing Group which has published Nature since 1869,[6] and Macmillan Education, which goes back to Macmillan Publishers founded in 1843.[7]
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). Plans for the merger were first announced on 15 January 2015.[8] The transaction was concluded in May 2015 with Holtzbrinck having the majority 53% share.[9]
IPO attempts in May 2018 and Autumn 2020[10] were unfruitful due to unfavorable market conditions.[11][12]
In 2021, Springer Nature acquired Atlantis Press, an open access publisher founded in Paris in 2006, focusing on scientific, technical, and medical (STM) content, and publication of conference proceedings.[13][14]
Controversies[edit]
In 2017, the company agreed to block access to hundreds of articles on its Chinese site, cutting off access to articles related to Tibet, Taiwan, and China's political elite.[38][39]
The company retracted a paper in 2019, in its journal BMC Emergency Medicine due to a dubious peer-review process (a herpetologist could have denied the publication of the paper).[40]
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, from a Taiwanese doctor because the word "China" was not placed after "Taiwan".[41][42]
In July 2020, Springer Nature retracted a paper in the journal Society due to a dubious review process and criticism regarding racism.[43]
In November 2021, Springer Nature retracted 44 nonsense papers from the Arabian Journal of Geosciences after a lapse in the peer review process.[44][45]
In August 2023, after an investigation, Springer Nature retracted a paper that claimed there is no evidence of a global climate crisis.[46][48]