The Trump administration has ended several U.S. science agencies’ subscriptions to Springer Nature journals, including the prestigious Nature titles. The move, which will end easy access to the journals for agency staff scientists, follows recent criticisms of academic journals by administration officials who accused them of bias.
The cuts involving the for-profit, publicly traded Springer Nature—one of the world’s largest scientific publishers, producing more than 3000 journal titles—were first reported Wednesday by Axios, without detailing specific agencies affected. Government officials have given conflicting statements about whether the cut included the company’s single biggest U.S. government subscription contract, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Yesterday, Inside Higher Ed reported that NIH first said its Springer Nature subscriptions had not been canceled, but later the agency’s parent department, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told the outlet they had; today, HHS provided the same statement to Science, saying “all contracts … are terminated or no longer active.” (The White House press office did not respond to Science’s request for comment.) A Science review of the USASpending.gov database shows that earlier this month the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Energy canceled Springer Nature subscriptions for which they had committed $3 million in funding this year.
The database shows that at least seven agencies had subscription contracts this year with Springer Nature as of 17 June, for which they had planned to eventually spend up to $25 million. Of that, about half was for NIH, which does not currently appear as canceled—but the database can be up to 2 weeks out of date, and its data are considered incomplete. The National Science Foundation’s subscription doesn’t appear in the database. But a spokesperson said today the agency continues to have a subscription.
More: https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-cuts-subscriptions-springer-nature-journals
