Springer Science+Business Media

Springer Science+Business Media
Founded 1842
Founder Julius Springer
Country of origin Germany
Headquarters location Berlin, Heidelberg
Nonfiction topics Science, technology, medicine, business, transport and architecture
Owner(s) Springer Nature
Official website www.springer.com

Springer Science+Business Media or Springer is a global publishing company that publishes books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, technical and medical (STM) publishing.[1] Springer also hosts a number of scientific databases, including SpringerLink, Springer Protocols, and SpringerImages. Book publications include major reference works, textbooks, monographs and book series; more than 168,000 titles are available as e-books in 24 subject collections.[2] Springer has major offices in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dordrecht, and New York City.

On January 15, 2015, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group / Nature Publishing Group and Springer Science+Business Media announced a merger.[3] The transaction was concluded in May 2015 and a new joint venture company, Springer Nature, was formed, with Holtzbrinck having the majority 53% share and BC Partners retaining 47% interest in the company.[4]

History

Julius Springer founded Springer-Verlag in Berlin in 1842 and his son Ferdinand Springer grew it from a small firm of 4 employees into Germany's second largest academic publisher with 65 staff in just 30 years.[5][6] In 1964, Springer expanded its business internationally, opening an office in New York. Offices in Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and Delhi soon followed.

The academic publishing company BertelsmannSpringer was formed after Bertelsmann bought a majority stake in Springer-Verlag in 1999.[5][7] The British investment groups Cinven and Candover bought BertelsmannSpringer from Bertelsmann in 2003.[7] They merged the company in 2004 with the Dutch publisher Kluwer Academic Publishers which they bought from Wolters Kluwer in 2002,[8] to form Springer Science+Business Media.

Springer acquired the open-access publisher BioMed Central in October 2008 for an undisclosed amount.

In 2009, Cinven and Candover sold Springer to two private equity firms, EQT Partners and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. The closing of the sale was confirmed in February 2010 after the competition authorities in the USA and in Europe approved the transfer.

In 2011, Springer acquired Pharma Marketing and Publishing Services from Wolters Kluwer.[9]

In 2013, the London-based private equity firm BC Partners acquired a majority stake in Springer from EQT and GIC for $4.4 billion.[10]

In 2014, it was revealed that Springer had published 16 fake papers in its journals that had been computer-generated using SCIgen. Springer subsequently removed all the papers from these journals. IEEE had also done the same thing by removing more than 100 fake papers from its conference proceedings.[11]

In 2015, Springer retracted 64 of the papers it had published after it was found that they had gone through a fraudulent peer review process.[12]

Electronic products

Springer provides its electronic book and journal content on its SpringerLink site, which launched in 1996.

SpringerProtocols is home to a collection of protocols, recipes which provide step-by-step instructions for conducting experiments in research labs.

SpringerImages was launched in 2008 and offers a collection of currently 1.8 million images spanning science, technology, and medicine.

SpringerMaterials was launched in 2009 and is a platform for accessing the Landolt-Börnstein database of research and information on materials and their properties.

AuthorMapper is a free online tool for visualizing scientific research that enables document discovery based on author locations and geographic maps. The tool helps users explore patterns in scientific research, identify literature trends, discover collaborative relationships, and locate experts in several scientific/medical fields.

Open access

For some of its journals, Springer does not require its authors to transfer their copyrights, and allows them to decide whether their articles are published under an open-access license or in the traditional restricted license model.[13] While open-access publishing typically requires the author to pay a fee for copyright retention, this fee is sometimes covered by a third party. For example, a national institution in Poland allows authors to publish in open-access journals without incurring any personal cost - but using public funds.[14] Springer is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.

Selected imprints

Selected publications

See also

References

  1. ↑ "648808Z Profile & Executives - Springer Science+Business Media GmbH - Bloomberg". bloomberg.com. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  2. ↑ "Search Results (within Book)". SpringerLink. Springer. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  3. ↑ "Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners Announce Agreement to Merge Majority of MacMillan Science and Education with Springer Science+Business Media", Jan. 15, 2015.
  4. ↑ Caroline Carpenter (May 6, 2015). "Completed merger forms 'Springer Nature'". The Bookseller. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
  5. 1 2 "History". Springer Science+Business Media.
  6. ↑ "Chronology". Springer Science+Business Media.
  7. 1 2 Poynder, Richard. "BertelsmannSpringer is Sold to Private Equity Firms". Information Today. May 27, 2003.
  8. ↑ "Kluwer Academic Publishers Sold to Venture Capitalists". Infotoday.com. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  9. ↑ Shah, Maulik. "Springer Acquisition".
  10. ↑ Heiskanen, Ville (2013-06-19). "BC Partners to Buy Springer Science for $4.4 Billion". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  11. ↑ Noorden, Richard Van (24 February 2014). "Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers". Nature News. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  12. ↑ Kaplan, Sarah (August 18, 2015). "Major publisher retracts 64 scientific papers in fake peer review outbreak". Washington Post. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  13. ↑ "Springer Open Choice". Springer.com. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  14. ↑ "Springer Open Choice for Polish Institutions". Springer.com. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  15. ↑ "Springer Praxis Books". Springer Science+Business Media. Retrieved May 1, 2015.

External links

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