Safeguarding Springer Nature collections: the integrity checks you should know about

Author: Kun Yu

Director of Collections Management and Acquisition 

Join us for a look behind the scenes of Springer Nature collections in a special blog series. In today’s blog, Kun Yu, Director of Collections Management and Acquisition, explains how Springer Nature collections safeguard integrity, and why this is so important for the researchers who publish in them. From rigorous guest editor vetting to data-driven topic-picks align, when you publish in a Springer Nature collection, both your work and your reputation benefit, and you also get networking opportunities.

In 2022, Springer Nature launched its Collections Management and Acquisition (CMA) team to drive the growth of high-quality articles via topical collections. Since then, I’ve been leading this team through the creation of high-quality collections through Springer Nature’s journals, from BMC and Nature to Discover and Springer. These collections are developed based on trusted relationships we’ve built with the global research community  

Our CMA team oversees collections published across Springer Nature journals, from BMC and Nature to Discover and Springer. By building trusted relationships with researchers worldwide, the team curates’ high quality, topical collections that showcase impactful work.

Delivering trustworthy collection content is our top priority

Collections provide an excellent home for your research because they bring your findings to highly engaged audiences, increase visibility within your field, and place your work alongside other rigorously selected articles. Maintaining the integrity of every collection is therefore essential. It ensures that your research gains the maximum benefit.

Prefer the highlights? Watch the short video for a quick summary of how we safeguard integrity in our collections.

The difference between collections and journals 

Collections are an effective way to group research papers focused on a specific topic and attract relevant and engaged readership interested in the themes or methods covered by the collection. Unlike a journal, a collection is not a standalone publication with its own aims-and-scope and editorial board; instead, it is a curated grouping of articles published within an existing journal (or across multiple journals), brought together under a shared theme to make it easier for readers to discover connected work in one place. 

The benefits of publishing to a Springer Nature collection 

When researchers publish in a Springer Nature collection, their work can enjoy greater visibility and a broader audience because it is surfaced to readers actively following that topic area. And because these collections uphold strong integrity standards, your article is presented alongside accurate, relevant, and properly curated content, reinforcing credibility for readers and strengthening the overall visibility and impact of your research. 

Springer Nature data show that publishing in collections leads to 31% more citations, 30% more downloads, and 63% higher Altmetrics scores than articles published outside of a collection.   

Sustaining these benefits for our authors requires not only great content, but for the content to uphold integrity and be trustworthy to the reader. How do we achieve this and create impactful Springer Nature collections?   

Working with guest editors to safeguard collections 

Our efforts to maintain and protecting research integrity in Springer Nature collections are multi-layered. The content itself must uphold integrity standards. As such, all manuscripts submitted to our collections undergo the same rigorous checks as regular submissions.  As collections are guest-edited, we use shared editorial oversight between the collection’s guest editor and the editor-in-chief of the journal in which the collection is published. 

Selecting and onboarding collection guest editors 

Here’s how our guest editor selection process works.  

1. Before a collection is launched, the CMA team conducts thorough research-integrity checks of proposed guest editors. These research-integrity checks include verifying email authenticity, background screening using both internal and external platforms, validating credentials and expertise, and assessing editorial qualifications.  
2. The editors-in-chief and publishers of the journals in which the collection will be launched then review the suitability of proposed guest editors and reach a decision.   
3. Once the guest editor for the collection is selected. the commissioning editors clearly communicate the guest editor’s main responsibilities as well as the journal’s ethical standards.  
4. After signing Springer Nature’s general data protection regulation (GDPR)-compliant agreement, guest editors are granted temporary and restricted access to the Springer Nature manuscript-handling system.  
5. The CMA team collaborates with the journal team to provide on-boarding support for the guest editors through tutorials and targeted training on editorial responsibilities, journal policies, research integrity, and the validation checks required during peer review. 

Collaborative editorial oversight and responsible editorial practice for integrity  

While guest editors can submit to their own collections, their own research cannot exceed 25% of the total content. All submissions from guest editors are handled by other independent editors to avoid any conflict of interest.   

We also have rules to limit editorial influence over content. For example, guest editors recommend manuscripts to be included in their collection, but the final decision is in the hands of the journal’s editor-in-chief always makes the final decision.   

For each paper submitted to a collection, the journal publishing team is responsible for conducting author conflict-of-interest checks, initial evaluations, scope checking, plagiarism screening, and peer-review monitoring. If any issues arise, the journal publishing team speaks with the in-house research integrity group to thoroughly investigate and resolve the case.  

Leading the way on integrity: Adhering to gold-standard guidelines  

The recently published Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on best practices for guest-edited collections have solved a long-standing challenge. In the early days, each academic publishing house developed different editorial models and associated policies based on their own strategies and requirements. This lack of standardisation created inconsistencies in the handling of content in collections.   

The recent COPE guidelines, which arrived at a critical moment, both acknowledge the value of the guest-edited model and help remedy these issues. And I’m proud to say that all our Springer Nature collections have been applying similar principles since well before the formal release of the guidelines in July 2025.  

Using data and AI insights to enhance collection article’s impact  

We’re fortunate enough to be witnessing a digitally transformative age in the history of scholarly publishing, with scientific discovery expanding rapidly.   

One way we are embracing this is our data-driven approach to topic selection. Each collection theme is carefully proposed based on the CMA team’s analysis or suggestions from experts in the field. Topics are then approved by the editors-in-chief and in-house editorial teams. Commissioning editors evaluate various metrics to identify the most promising themes.  

Moreover, artificial intelligence (AI) also plays a key role in enhancing the CMA team’s daily operations, especially in topic selection and author outreach. We use AI to map collections to relevant United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),  streamline workflows, and improve strategic alignment. Our AI editor tool, launched earlier this year, is used to explore topics, scope collections, and create marketing text.  

This approach, paired with a focus on openness and transparency, gives us confidence that the publishing environment is becoming more diverse, honest, and ethically sound.   

 In summary 

The high quality of Springer Nature collections relies on our thorough checks for guest editors; collaborations with the journal publishing and research integrity teams; and meeting the COPE standards to ensure we continue delivering trustworthy collections.   

If you’re interested in publishing your work in a Springer Nature collection, check out our dedicated Springer Nature collections website, where you can find interviews with guest editors, impact case studies, author success stories, and much more. 

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