Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Big Ten Academic Alliance and Springer Nature sign landmark open publishing agreement

May 29th, 2025

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) has signed a groundbreaking two-year Open Publishing Agreement with Springer Nature—marking the publisher’s first unlimited, uncapped open access agreement in the Americas. This agreement is the BTAA’s fifth Open Publishing Agreement and its most ambitious yet, significantly expanding publishing opportunities for researchers across participating institutions, including Purdue University. 

Under this new agreement, authors affiliated with participating BTAA member institutions can publish open access articles in Springer Nature’s entire hybrid journal portfolio without paying article processing charges. This includes over 2,200 journals published under the Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Adis imprints, as well as Academic Journals; it does not, however, include Nature titles or those that are fully open access. The deal removes financial barriers and simplifies the publishing process, allowing authors to retain their rights and publish under a Creative Commons license—ensuring immediate, unrestricted access to their research. 

To learn more about this agreement and others, please visit our Open Access Publishing Partnerships guide.