For €9,500 (US $11,390), researchers can publish their work open access in Nature and its family of journals, according to Nature News.
Last month, Springer Nature reached a deal with the Max Planck institutes so that researchers there could publish their work open access in Nature journals. A previous open-access agreement Springer Nature made with Project DEAL in 2019 excluded Nature and its family of journals, Science noted at the time.
Nature News adds that the new announcement was spurred by Plan S, which was developed by a consortium of European research funders and requires researchers whose work is supported by public funds to publish their work so that it is open access.
The open-access fee Springer Nature is charging is higher than other journals, according to Nature News, which notes that the next highest is about €5,000. "The fee to me seems incredibly high," Michael Marks from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tells ScienceInsider.
It notes that the publisher is also piloting a program under which fees for papers appearing in Nature Genetics, Nature Methods, and Nature Physics would be €4,790.
Others note that Springer Nature's acceptance of open access signals a shift in the push to make all scientific articles freely available, Nature News adds.