What’s it worth to have an article published in Nature? The publisher thinks $15 400

Nature reports that from next year its owner, journal giant Springer will publish open access articles that make the editorial cut for its high-prestige research publications, like – Nature.

But there’s a catch – in fact €9500 (A$15 400) in catches. That’s the price Springer will want for an article in a paywalled journal to be open access.

Pay to publish is called gold open access in the trade, in this case it’s a barrel of bullion.

Nature says Springer’s plan is a response to the European Plan S, which requires papers based on publicly funded research to be OA.

But there’s another OA way for Plan S.

The European Commission has another way-more affordable idea for research funded by its Horizon 2020 and successor, €1bn Horizon Europe research programmes.

It’s launching Open Research Europe, a peer-reviewed, no author charge OA platform providing, “rapid publication times and publication outputs that support research integrity, reproducibility and transparency and enable open science practices.” The anticipated €780 cost per article will be paid to the EC.