The Springer Compact contract combines access to subscribed journals with prepaid article processing charges for Open Access articles for the licensee. BOKU scientists can publish their articles Open Access in more than 2,000 Springer journals free of charge.1 Moreover, members of BOKU have online access to more than 2,000 Springer subscription journal content. (Agreement period 2024-2026)

Due to the lack of budget for the Open Access Publication Fund, it is unfortunately no longer possible to finance publication costs in Gold Open Access journals from BMC and SpringerOpen.

What are the advantages for authors and participating institutions?

  • High visibility for their work; upon their publication all articles are available for free for everyone

  • Re-use of the articles in accordance with Creative Commons licences

  • Automated deposit in PubMed Central (PMC)/ Europe PMC

  • Open Access fees are covered by the library


Who can use the Open Choice offer?
Authors affiliated with BOKU according to UG 2002 §94 at the time of acceptance.

  • Who are corresponding author
  • Whose article got accepted for an Open Choice journal
  • Whose article belongs to one of the following type: Original Paper, Review Paper, Brief Communication or Continuing Education

List of eligible journals (Nature Journals are not part of the agreement)
 

Verification process:
Once an article has been accepted by Springer, the corresponding author has to identify himself/herself as BOKU staff member (drop-down list) and agree to the Open Access conditions.
This includes mentioning BOKU in the acknowledgements of the article in its publication ("Open access funding provided by University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)").
The affiliation of the corresponding author is verified by Springer and the BOKU library.
 

For publications resulting from FWF projects you have to specify BOKU as affiliation and in the note the FWF Grant Number.

If choosing Open Choice the copyright stays with the author. Almost 1,600 Open Choice journals publish under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).
 

Further information:
https://www.springernature.com/de/open-research/oa-agreements/austria

https://www.kemoe.at/english/open-access/springer-open-access-english
 

Please direct questions to ub.support(at)boku.ac.at.

1 Please be aware that colour-in-print charges have to be paid by the author.