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| Parent company | Springer Nature |
|---|---|
| Status | Active |
| Founded | 1869 (1869) (Nature Journal) |
| Founder | |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | London,N1 |
| Distribution | Worldwide |
| Publication types | Academic journals,magazines, online databases |
| Nonfiction topics | Science, medicine |
| Owner | Springer Nature |
| No. of employees | >800 |
| Official website | nature.com |
Nature Portfolio (formerly known asNature Publishing Group andNature Research)[1] is a division of the internationalscientific publishing companySpringer Nature that publishesacademic journals,magazines, and online databases, in addition to offering services in science and medicine.
Nature Research's flagship publication isNature, a weeklymultidisciplinary journal first published in 1869. It also publishes theNature-titled research journals,Nature Reviews journals (since 2000),[2]society-owned academic journals, and a range ofopen access journals, includingScientific Reports andNature Communications. Springer Nature also publishesScientific American in 16 languages, a magazine intended for the general public.
In 2013, prior to the merger withSpringer and the creation of Springer Nature, Nature Publishing Group's owner,Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, bought a controlling stake[3][4] inFrontiers.[5] Before Springer Nature was formed in 2015, Nature Research (as the Nature Publishing Group) was a part of Macmillan Science and Education, a fully owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.[6]
Nature Research employs thousands of people in its offices inLondon,New York City,San Francisco,Seoul,Washington, D.C.,Boston,Tokyo,Paris,Berlin,Munich,Madrid,Hong Kong,Shanghai,Delhi,Melbourne,Mexico City,Buenos Aires,São Paulo andBasingstoke.[7] After the merger with Springer Science+Business Media in 2015, the company grew to about 13,000 employees.[8]
In June 2025, the Trump administration moved to terminate certain federal government contracts with Springer Nature, citing political bias.[9][10][11]
As of 2020, Nature Research publishes 156 academic journals.[12] The formerNature Clinical Practice series was rebranded and folded into theNature Reviews series in 2009.[13] They also publish thenpj (Nature Partner Journals) series.
In most cases, the costs of Springer Nature's publications are recovered via subscription to individuals and institutions. Over 40 journals allow their authors to publishopen access articles, with the author (or their institution or research funder) paying apublication charge to the journal. The publisher also has severalopen access journals. Authors are also allowed to post accepted, unedited papers on their websites or the funding body's archives no earlier than 6 months after publication.[14]
In June 2010, a letter outlining theUniversity of California libraries' pricing challenges with NPG was distributed to university faculty by campus librarians with the support of the systemwide University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. The letter also described a potential boycott if the dispute was not resolved.[15] In August 2010, a joint statement was released stating "Our two organizations have agreed to work together in the coming months to address our mutual short- and long-term challenges, including an exploration of potential new approaches and evolving publishing models."[16]
In December 2014, NPG announced that it would make content from all ofNature's journals available online for free. However, articles are presented using thedigital rights management systemReadCube (which is funded by the Macmillan subsidiary Digital Science), which only provides "read-only" access, and does not allow readers to download, copy, print, or otherwise distribute the content. Additionally, links to these articles can only be generated byNature subscribers and a group of selected media outlets, but the links can be publicly distributed through online articles andsocial networks afterwards. Providers can also provide annotations on the linked articles.[17] The move was designed to counter the trend of "dark sharing", while leveraging ReadCube to provideanalytics. While considering it a compromise between fully restricted access, critics do not consider this to be a true open access scheme due to its restrictions on use and distribution.[18]
In 2011, Nature launched its first line of electronic textbooks for the college market, starting withPrinciples of Biology, which was adopted byCalifornia State University.[19][20] The textbook line has been described by Vikram Savkar, senior vice president and publishing director at then Nature Publishing Group, as potentially breaking down the traditional textbook publishing model.[21]
Other active Nature Portfolio services include:
Past experiments at offering online services include:
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Holtzbrinck |
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