The Library and Information Service has long supported Open Access (OA) publishing, including the development of strong institutional repositories enabling both green and diamond OA. More recently, as part of the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC), the Library entered several “Read and Publish” (Transformative) Agreements. These agreements have allowed SU researchers to publish OA in selected journals without paying Article Processing Charges (APCs).

However, some agreements have a national annual cap on the number of OA articles that can be published. Once this cap is reached, APC waivers are no longer available for the remainder of that year.

As such, we wish to inform SU researchers that the 2025 national allocation for OA publishing in Springer Nature hybrid journals has now been fully used. Of the 1,074 articles allocated for South African institutions, SU researchers contributed 96 articles (approximately 9% of the national total).

As a result, Springer Nature has deactivated the no-fee OA publishing option for SU authors in hybrid journals with immediate effect. Any new OA submissions to Springer Nature hybrid journals will now incur APCs, which will be invoiced to authors or their departments, as they are no longer covered by the agreement. Researchers may still publish in Springer Nature hybrid journals without paying APCs if they choose the standard (paywalled) publication route.

Despite the latest developments, the 15% discount for BioMed Central (BMC) fully OA journals remains in place. Researchers will continue to be responsible for the full APCs when publishing in other fully OA Springer Nature journals.

We understand that this change may affect research publication planning. We encourage researchers to consider other OA options available through SANLiC’s remaining “Read and Publish” agreements, which still provide no-fee OA publishing in hybrid journals from several other publishers.

For more information, please consult the Library’s Open Access Publishing LibGuide.

For further assistance, please contact Sizwe Ngcobo.