Springer Nature bets big on India

The publishing group is also keen on tapping the growing Indian market that’s seeing the rise of research output. 

“For the last 10-15 years, we have seen tremendous growth in China. We think India will be the next,” Frank Vrancken Peeters, chief executive officer and member of the management board, Springer Nature Group, told mediapersons.

He added, “India is extremely important to us. We have a lot of talent in India. At the same time, there is a good opportunity to strengthen our ties with various research communities. 

Springer employs about a fifth of its over 10,000 global workforce in India across offices supporting editorial, IT, production, finance, sales, and marketing. 

Springer, through Palgrave Macmillan, is also into K12 academic publishing. Its Pune office alone employs 1,500 people mostly related to digital and AI expertise. 

Peeters said India has the third highest publication output, behind China and US. “Out of 2.5 million articles, I think India has 300,000 articles. It is quite a significant volume,” Peeters said.

In India, 80% of research is funded by the government. Peeters flags research integrity, including the problem of paper mills as a key concern plaguing Indian academic output. Paper mills are illegal organisations that sell authorship of bogus papers to researchers trying to pad their CVs. 

(Courtesy: Agencies)