Springer Nature announces TA in Brazil

Springer Nature and Coordenação de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) last week formalized their commitment to enable the first Transformative Agreement (TA) for both in Brazil and committed to partnership on a pilot project in 2024 to facilitate the implementation of this transition to open access.

Springer Nature says approximately 20% of all articles published by Brazilian researchers in all hybrid journals published under the Springer, Adis, Palgrave, and Academic Journals of Springer Nature will be covered by this pilot project, which will start in 2024 and come at no additional cost to CAPES. With every effort made by CAPES, the coverage will be progressively increased in the upcoming years, with a target coverage of around 40% by 2026.

Historically, over 340 institutions have received reading rights to more than 1,800 diverse scientific publications published under the Springer name thanks to a commercial collaboration between CAPES and Springer Nature that spans more than 20 years. This has been a vital resource for Brazilian scholars looking to become part of the international community.

Maria Lopes, vice president of institutional sales for Springer Nature, said: "Springer Nature, in collaboration with CAPES, is proud to be a part of this historic global shift in research and education toward open access. Through this alliance, open access throughout the Americas is gaining traction and support. We are dedicated to making sure that open research can develop and flourish in the Americas, having spent more than eight years putting into practice over 44 groundbreaking agreements across the globe. Our continued priorities include promoting worldwide open access, scholarly cooperation, discoverability, and large-scale usability.”

Mercedes Bustamante, professor at the University of Brasilia and director of Brazilian programs and scholarships at CAPES, said: ”The signing of this protocol of intent is an important step for the development of CAPES' open access policy within the scope of the Journals Portal. This action is one among others, such as supporting Brazilian national journals through SciELO, which will be part of CAPES' support for open access to national scientific communication.”

CAPES and Springer Nature say they will work together to address related procedures and legal and operational details while creating solutions appropriate for Brazilian realities. In order to further advance science in Brazil, the two organizations will also collaborate to establish public policies that will govern the use of resources to support the publication of open-access articles and guarantee democratic access to the collection of titles from Springer Nature's Academic Journals, Adis, Palgrave, and Springer.