Springer Science+Business Media
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 1 January 1842 in Berlin, Germany |
| Founder | Julius Springer |
| Headquarters | Berlin , Germany |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Books, electronic books, peer-reviewed journals |
| Parent | Springer Nature |
| Website | springer |
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a global publishing enterprise based in Germany, focusing on scientific, technical, medical (STM), and humanities literature, including books, electronic books, and peer-reviewed journals.
The company was established in 1842 in Berlin by Julius Springer. Its international presence began expanding during the 1960s with new branches opening in cities such as New York, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and Delhi. By 1872, under the leadership of Julius's son Ferdinand Springer, it had become the second-largest academic publisher in Germany.
In 1999, the media conglomerate Bertelsmann acquired a controlling interest, creating BertelsmannSpringer. In 2003, British private equity firms Cinven and Candover took ownership of BertelsmannSpringer. The following year, they merged it with Dutch publisher Kluwer Academic Publishers, which they had purchased from Wolters Kluwer, resulting in the formation of Springer Science+Business Media.
Springer's growth continued through acquisitions such as Humana Press in 2006 and the open-access publisher BioMed Central in 2008. In 2009, private equity investors EQT AB and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation bought Springer from Cinven and Candover.
Additional expansion included acquiring Pharma Marketing and Publishing Services (MPS) from Wolters Kluwer in 2011. In 2013, the private equity firm BC Partners acquired a majority shareholding for $4.4 billion.
In January 2015, Springer combined forces with Nature Publishing Group, part of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, to form Springer Nature. Holtzbrinck retained a 53% controlling interest while BC Partners held the remaining 47%.
Products
Springer introduced digital book and journal content through its SpringerLink platform starting in 1996.
The launch of SpringerImages occurred in 2008, followed by SpringerMaterials in 2009, which provides access to the Landolt-Börnstein database containing detailed information on material properties.
AuthorMapper is a complimentary web-based tool that visualizes research by plotting authors' geographic locations. This assists users in identifying emerging trends in literature, collaboration networks, and subject-matter experts within scientific and medical disciplines.
Springer Protocols—a comprehensive compilation of laboratory experiment methodologies—was incorporated into SpringerLink in 2018.
The company's book collection encompasses key reference works, textbooks, monographs, and series titles. Its electronic library features over 168,000 e-books distributed across 24 subject-specific collections.
Open access
As an active participant in the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, Springer provides authors with choices to publish either under open-access licenses or conventional restricted licenses without mandating copyright transfer. Frequently, open-access publication fees are funded by third parties; for example, Polish national agencies support authors to publish open access without incurring personal expenses.
Controversies
In 1938, Springer-Verlag was forced to comply with Nazi regulations affecting the journal Zentralblatt MATH, leading to the dismissal of Jewish editor Tullio Levi-Civita and prompting Otto Neugebauer along with most editorial board members to resign in protest.
In 2014, Springer withdrew 16 conference papers that had been generated using the computer program SCIgen. Similarly, IEEE removed more than 100 fraudulent papers from its conference proceedings.
In 2015, Springer retracted 64 articles across ten journals after discovering manipulation within the peer review process.
Bibliometric manipulation
Commercial academic publishers, such as Springer Nature, have come under scrutiny for potentially profiting from the manipulation of bibliometrics, including metrics like the journal impact factor. These indicators play a significant role in determining a journal's reputation and affect revenue sources such as subscription sales and governmental funding.
In 2020, the 2019 impact factors of seven journals published by Springer Nature were suspended in the Journal Citation Reports due to an excessive level of self-citation. This action was part of a wider penalty that impacted a total of 34 journals.
Notable imprints
- Adis International
- Apress
- BioMed Central
- Chemistry Central (no longer active)
- PhysMath Central (no longer active)
- Birkhäuser Verlag
- Current Medicine Group
- Humana Press
- Infochem
- Kluwer Academic Publishers (defunct)
- Plenum Publishers
- SpringerOpen
- Springer Gabler
- Springer Praxis Books
- (previously (SAV))
- Springer Vieweg
Prominent publications
- Cellular Oncology
- Encyclopaedia of Mathematics
- Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete (series of books)
- Graduate Texts in Mathematics (book series)
- Grothendieck's Séminaire de géométrie algébrique
- The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science
- Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics (book series)
- Zentralblatt MATH
- MRS Bulletin