Springer nature and the SDGs

Helping to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a key part of our sustainable business strategy. The most significant contribution we can make to doing so is through the content we publish.

We disseminate new knowledge on the wide variety of issues represented within the SDGs beyond academic circles and seek to be the publisher of choice for researchers whose work tackles these global challenges. We also consider the impact of our business operations on the SDGs.

SDG highlights

Since the SDGs were launched in 2015, Springer Nature has:

Illustration of books

Published over 800,000 articles and book chapters relevant to the SDGs, collectively cited over 9.5 million times.

Illustration of the Earth

Increased the volume of SDG-relevant articles we publish by around 118%.

Illustration of a pen writing

Signed the SDG Publishers Compact and joined the Fellows Initiative to bring this Compact to life.

Illustration of two people writing on a board

Launched an SDG Impact Challenge to raise awareness of the goals and encourage colleagues to take action to reduce their personal impact.

Our focus SDGs

Our publishing covers content relevant to all the goals with a focus on the three we believe we can make the greatest contribution to:

SDG 4: Quality Education

We amplify sustainability research, sharing it widely so that it can have maximum impact within the research community, for our own employees and in wider society.

SDG 13: Climate Action

We publish the latest climate research, manage our operational impacts and are working to become net zero by 2040.

SDG 17: Partnerships For The Goals

We have sought new partnerships to link research and interdisciplinary experts with those making key decisions.

Raising awareness of SDGs at springer nature

In 2022, we held our second SDG Impact Festival for employees. Part of the festival included a four-week SDG Impact Challenge in partnership with UK based charity Hubbub, during which employees discovered simple and impactful actions to contribute to the goals. They could also estimate their carbon footprint and track progress on reducing emissions using a virtual platform, Giki Zero.

Impact highlights

500+ colleagues worldwide took part in the SDG Impact Challenge.

86 tonnes of CO2 saved thanks to colleagues’ commitments, which was matched by Springer Nature through forestry-based carbon offsets.

100 tree saplings planted in Pune, a vegan bake sale in New Delhi and a beach clean-up in New York thanks to teammates acting together.

Open access

A pioneer and leader in open access (OA) publishing for more than 20 years, we are committed to making peer-reviewed research immediately available for all to read, share and use online – for free.

2022 OA highlights

  • >0 OA articles published
  • 0th OA book celebrated
  • 0% of published SDG-related articles or book chapters were OA

“We believe that for the general public to understand and have more trust in science, having easy access to research is the first step. We therefore wanted to make sure that everyone can read our work, access and download our data, and study what we did; within a week our paper had been read 32,000 times, and almost 80% of our readers belong to the general public!”

Melanie During

An author of the first paper to be published under the new Swedish transformative agreement (TA) agreed in 2022.

Case study

Mpox outbreak

Following the WHO’s 2022 declaration of the mpox outbreak (formerly monkeypox) as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, Springer Nature made related content free to access. In addition, we created a dedicated digital mpox hub to support the global community in accessing and developing knowledge of the virus.

An image showing what mpox looks like in a microscope

Case study

Equitable OA

Ensuring the transition to OA is sustainable means finding new ways for publishing costs to be funded. Primary research from authors from over 70 countries classified as low-income or lower-middle-income economies accepted for publication in Nature or one of Nature’s research journals can be published Gold OA at no cost.

People sitting taking notes

Science communication

We have an important role to play in combating the rise of misinformation and ensuring accurate understanding of the latest research. We do this by publishing peer-reviewed research and sharing it across our channels and platforms to reach a variety of audiences.

Our journalists and bloggers reach millions of people every month:

  • 0 million+ visits to Nature and Scientific American websites
  • 0.0 million Springer Nature Group followers on Twitter
  • 0.00 million listens to the Nature Podcast in 2022

Case study

Science meets popular culture

Science Stories is a series of videos from Springer Nature that go behind the scenes of some of the exciting and inspirational research that we publish. Lights, Camera, Science is a short film that explores how the convergence of science and entertainment can forge powerful stories that educate, entertain and inspire action.

Conveying the reach and impact of published research on popular culture, it features a collaboration with Netflix’s climate-themed film Don’t Look Up, the non-profit organisation Count Us In and Disney’s Comics & Science series.

You can read the story about how science communication was key to getting the research into the hands of these organisations from the researchers themselves.

Leonardo DiCaprio in Don't Look Up

Transforming research publishing

From automatically matching papers with peer reviewers to tailored, AI-generated research summaries, technology is a key factor in driving forward open science and unlocking the power of knowledge faster.

“Science, research and innovation have an impact on every industry, fuelling human and society’s progress. We are on a mission to provide the digital platform, tools and services to help researchers across academia, businesses and research institutions to collaborate and create this step change for every industry and society as a whole.”

Harsh Jegadeesan, Chief Solutions Officer, Springer Nature

Case study

Exploring preprint perceptions

We encourage authors to share their work early by enabling them to post their submitted manuscript on InReview, a preprint platform developed by Research Square in partnership with Springer Nature.

We surveyed InReview users to understand how publishers can better support open research practices. 69% of authors said ease of use and being able to share their manuscript as a preprint at the same time as journal submission had an impact on where they chose to publish.

In response, we are further integrating solutions into the publishing workflow to make early sharing easier. We also completed the acquisition of Research Square.

Research folders

Case study

Supporting austrian doctors with digital solutions

In 2022, Springer Medizin acquired Medbee, a leading professional online network for doctors in Austria that provides high-quality specialist communications tools for the healthcare sector. The Medbee app enables data and documents to be individually organised and accessed via smartphones, making it easy to use in clinical practice situations.

Two doctors mid conversation, looking and pointing at a handheld device