Editors

Research integrity

The Springer Nature Editorial Advisory Group (SNEAG) oversees editorial standards and policies across all brands, acting to ensure consistency with sector best practice. SNEAG works closely with the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group (SNRIG) which supports editors to resolve publication ethics issues in a COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics)-compliant manner. 

SNRIG takes a positive and proactive approach to preventing and addressing errors and misconduct. SNRIG works to raise awareness of best practice and ethical conduct in research, investigates unethical practices, provides training and investigation resources, acts as an advisory service for staff and editors, and audits Springer Nature’s own editorial practices and policies.

Concerns

To report or comment on any research integrity concerns about any Springer Nature journals, please contact the relevant journal. Contact details can be found on the journal websites.

Ensuring the integrity of our publications

At Springer Nature ensuring the quality of what we publish is imperative. Watch the video to find out more about the process we follow when an issue has been detected on a manuscript.

Reproducibility

Reproducibility is a tenet of research integrity. Springer Nature participates in a number of initiatives that help drive the reproducibility agenda forward. Here are just a few examples:

Research data services

Springer Nature has a team of data editors that offers free advice to researchers on how and where to share their data. Assistance curating datasets to make them useful and findable, and getting due credit for data sharing, is also available.

Peer review and publication of code

Many Springer Nature research journals encourage researchers who submit papers that rely on bespoke software to provide the programs for peer review. A code and software submission checklist to help authors compile and present code for peer review is available.

Minimal Standards Working Group

A working group of journal editors and other experts has been convened, with the aim of agreeing a minimal set of reporting standards for research in the life sciences. The collective experience of journals― for example, with Nature Research’s reporting summary―is being leveraged in this cross-publisher collaboration.

Transparency

Springer Nature helps authors share their work early and widely, and is working to open up the ‘black box’ of peer review. We support preprint deposition and citation, and multiple models of peer review.

In Review

A first-of-its-kind prepublication platform that shines new light on submission, peer review and editorial processes.  In Review enables authors to easily track the status of their manuscript while it’s out for review, as well as share it for community comment early in the editorial process.

Portable Peer Review

For papers that have been rejected by another journal after peer review, BMC Biology invites authors to submit those peer-review reports with their paper. For papers rejected after peer review at BMC Biology, the journal will transfer peer-review reports to any journal of the authors’ choice.

Under Consideration

At Nature Communications, authors can choose to include a link to a preprint of any paper of theirs that is being peer reviewed by the journal on a public list. Authors that haven't already deposited their paper in a preprint server can post their paper once alerted to formal peer review by Nature Communications.

Links to Preprints

Authors who publish in Nature Machine Intelligence can choose to add a link back to recognised community preprint platforms arXiv or bioRxiv from their published paper.

Publications

Springer Nature publishes many books and journals devoted to research ethics and integrity, including:

  • 40979
  • 41073
  • 10805
  • 11948
  • 40889
  • 9783319760407
  • 9783319512778
  • 9783319655543

Partnerships

Springer Nature seeks to collaborate with other stakeholders in the research enterprise to inculcate best practice and maximise recognition of researcher contributions.

COPE

Springer Nature is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We work with COPE to disseminate best-practice resources, such as guidance on dealing with systematic manipulation of the publication process.

ORCID

Springer and Nature Publishing Group were amongst the founders of ORCID, a non-profit organization that provides researchers with a unique digital identifier. The ORCID website provides researchers with a page where comprehensive research activity can be documented. This includes peer review data.

Publons

Springer Nature has partnered with Publons, a free service for researchers to track, verify and showcase their peer-review and editorial contributions. Peer reviewers can directly deposit their activity on their Publons profile via our submission systems.

Publishing ethics for journals

Find further information on editorial policies and standards for Springer Nature journals on our specific imprint sites.

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