Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group^[1][2] is a German-British academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macmillan Education.^[3]

The company originates from several journals and publishing houses, notably Springer-Verlag, which was founded in 1842 by Julius Springer in Berlin^[4] (the grandfather of Bernhard Springer who founded Springer Publishing in 1950 in New York),^[5] Nature Publishing Group which has published Nature since 1869,^[6] and Macmillan Education, which goes back to Macmillan Publishers founded in 1843.^[7]

Springer Nature was formed in 2015 by the merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macmillan Education (held by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group) with Springer Science+Business Media (held by BC Partners). Plans for the merger were first announced on 15 January 2015.^[8] The transaction was concluded in May 2015 with Holtzbrinck having the majority 53% share.^[9]

IPO attempts in May 2018 and Autumn 2020^[10] were unfruitful due to unfavorable market conditions.^[11][12]

In 2021, Springer Nature acquired Atlantis Press, an open access publisher founded in Paris in 2006, focusing on scientific, technical, and medical (STM) content, and publication of conference proceedings.^[13][14]

After the merger, former Springer Science+Business Media CEO Derk Haank became CEO of Springer Nature.^[15] When he retired by the end of 2017, he was succeeded by Daniel Ropers,^[16] the co-founder and long-time CEO of bol.com.^[17] In September 2019, Ropers was replaced by Frank Vrancken Peeters.^[18][19]

The company is releasing several Policies & Reports,^[20] including a Modern Slavery Act statement, a Tax strategy, and a gender pay gap report for Springer Nature's UK operations.^[21][22]

Springer Nature is a signatory of the SDG Publishers Compact,^[23][24] and has taken steps to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the publishing industry.^[25][26][27] These include becoming carbon neutral as of 2020,^[26] organizing its publications into 17 SDG-related content hubs,^[28][29] and launching thematic journals such as Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability,^[30] Nature Food, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Water and Nature Cities (appearing 2024).^[31] In 2014, the Nature Portfolio series of themed online journals was launched.^[32]

Springer's journal Environment, Development, and Sustainability was one of six out of 100 journals to receive the highest possible "Five Wheel" impact rating^[33] from the SDG Impact Intensity™ journal rating system, based on an analysis of data from 2016-2020 that assessed relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).^[34][35]

In 2017, the company agreed to block access to hundreds of articles on its Chinese site, cutting off access to articles related to Tibet, Taiwan, and China's political elite.^[38][39]

The company retracted a paper in 2019, in its journal BMC Emergency Medicine due to a dubious peer-review process (a herpetologist could have denied the publication of the paper).^[40]

In August 2020, Springer Nature was reported to have rejected the publication of an article at the behest of its co-publisher, Wenzhou Medical University, from a Taiwanese doctor because the word "China" was not placed after "Taiwan".^[41][42]

In July 2020, Springer Nature retracted a paper in the journal Society due to a dubious review process and criticism regarding racism.^[43]

In November 2021, Springer Nature retracted 44 nonsense papers from the Arabian Journal of Geosciences after a lapse in the peer review process.^[44][45]

In August 2023, after an investigation, Springer Nature retracted a paper that claimed there is no evidence of a global climate crisis.^[46][48]

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