London | Berlin, 9 September 2020 Springer Nature and ResearchGate have agreed to move forward with a long-term content syndication partnership starting in Q4 of 2020. This cooperation expands the scope of a two-phase pilot which began in 2019 and has been evaluated in a white paper published today.
The partnership will enable content delivery of version-of-record (VoR) articles directly to ResearchGate publication pages. Entitled users will be able to download and read on ResearchGate the VoR of articles published in Springer journals from the past five years, and all Nature Research journals from the past three years; new articles will be made available on a daily basis as they are published. Non-entitled users will be able to access an enhanced abstract of the article on ResearchGate, which includes metadata, abstract, figures and captions, and the full first page. By combining Springer Nature’s expertise in publishing high-quality research with ResearchGate’s online platform of millions of scientists, both organizations aim to deliver an enhanced and seamless experience for the communities they serve.
Steven Inchcoombe, Chief Publishing and Solutions Officer at Springer Nature, said: “This partnership is a wonderful example of how we can provide content directly to researchers on the platforms that they use for collaboration and networking, therefore improving the discoverability and visibility of our authors’ work. We are pleased that we can build on the success of the pilot phases, which showed numerous benefits to librarians, researchers, and authors. By bringing together two organizations with differing areas of expertise but similar goals, we strongly believe that we can support a seamless experience so that researchers can access the articles they need while maximising engagement with their peers.”
Springer Nature and ResearchGate began the content-sharing pilot in response to a number of challenges, including how to streamline multi-step authentication processes, enable seamless remote access to content, and support researchers in finding the most relevant and reliable research in context.
The white paper released today, Researchers at the Centre, indicates that the partnership brought multiple benefits which led to an enhanced user experience for authors, researchers, and librarians.
Key findings from the pilot phases of the partnership:
Sören Hofmayer, ResearchGate co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, said: “Springer Nature and ResearchGate entered this collaborative content syndication pilot with the aim of better supporting the researchers we serve. We have learned a lot, and we're excited to share the outcomes of this work through the white paper we are jointly releasing today. We hope it will encourage other actors in the scholarly communication ecosystem to join us to keep innovating to better support researchers, together.”
For the full evaluation of the pilot phases of the Springer Nature/ResearchGate partnership, please see the white paper “Researchers at the centre: content discoverability, visibility and access.”
Springer Nature: Katie Baker
katie.baker@springernature.com
ResearchGate: Dan Noyes
dan.noyes@researchgate.net
For over 175 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies. As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Research, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature.
ResearchGate is making research more efficient. Over 18 million researchers use researchgate.net to connect with peers, share and discover the latest research, and advance their careers. Based in Berlin, ResearchGate was founded in 2008. It supports its activities by providing scientific recruitment and advertising. Its mission is to connect the world of science and make research open to all.
