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 byBC 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]
The company is releasing several Policies & Reports,[20] including aModern Slavery Act statement, a Tax strategy, and agender pay gap report for Springer Nature's UK operations.[21][22]
Springer Nature is a signatory of theSDG Publishers Compact,[23][24] and has taken steps to support the achievement of theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the publishing industry.[25][26][27] These include becoming carbon neutral as of 2020,[26] organizing its publications into 17 SDG-related content hubs,[28][29] and launching thematic journals such asNature Climate Change,Nature Energy,Nature Sustainability,[30]Nature Food,Nature Human Behaviour,Nature Water andNature Cities (appearing 2024).[31] In 2014, the Nature Portfolio series of themed online journals was launched.[32]
Springer's journalEnvironment, Development, and Sustainability was one of six out of 100 journals to receive the highest possible "Five Wheel" impact rating[33] from the SDG Impact Intensity™ journal rating system, based on an analysis of data from 2016–2020 that assessed relevance to theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs).[34][35]
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 journalBMC Emergency Medicine due to a dubious peer-review process (a herpetologist could have denied the publication of the paper).[40]
In July 2020, Springer Nature retracted a paper in the journalSociety due to a dubious review process and criticism regarding racism.[41]
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".[42][43]
In November 2021, Springer Nature retracted 44 nonsense papers from theArabian 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]
In October 2025,Anna Krylov, a professor of chemistry at theUniversity of Southern California, published an open letter calling for aboycott of Nature journals, accusing the publisher of abandoning its scientific mission in favor of a "social justice agenda".[49] Krylov criticizedNature Reviews Psychology for encouraging "citation justice" practices aimed at promoting works by authors from favored identity groups, andNature Human Behaviour for publishing editorial guidance stating an intent to consider potential social harm when evaluating research submissions. The letter received support from evolutionary biologistRichard Dawkins.[49] A Springer Nature spokesperson responded that citation diversity statements are optional for authors and do not affect content evaluation.[49]
In September 2024,Lucina Uddin, a neuroscience professor atUCLA, sued Springer Nature along with five otheracademic journal publishers in a proposedclass-action lawsuit, alleging that the publishers violatedantitrust law by agreeing not to compete against each other for manuscripts and by denying scholars payment forpeer review services.[50][51]
^Before the paper was retracted,Sky News Australia – a news station priorly outed as a centre for climate change misinformation[47] – published two segments on the paper, which were then subsequently viewed over half a million times onYouTube.[46]
