Nature Publishing Group has long been a leader in scientific and medical publishing. The company’s flagship publication, Nature, has been publishing across a broad range of scientific disciplines since 1869 and is the world’s most cited interdisciplinary journal. In the past several years, Timo Hannay as head of web publishing and Annette Thomas as CEO of MacMillian (NPG’s parent company) successfully brought NPG into the digital age with a wide variety of new scientific journals and projects that leverage the power of the Internet.

As part of this program, NPG has made very clear its support of open access publishing. Last month, the company announced that an additional 15 of its journals now offer open access options. And this week, the company announced a brand new online open access journal called Scientific Reports. With this launch, a full 80% of NPG academic and society journals and 50% of all journals the company publishes offer open access options to authors.

Another way in which NPG shows its support of open systems is by supporting the work we do at Creative Commons – both philosophically and financially. We find ourselves on the same side of the table as NPG during many discussions on how to increase openness and innovation in scientific communication and digital access. Key members of NPG have repeatedly expressed their deep appreciation for the fact that CC licenses are the foundation on which the Open Access movement rests. In a recent meeting between CC and NPG, Jason Wilde, Publishing Director of NPG, told us that they would like to show that appreciation in a concrete manner – a donation to Creative Commons for every each publication in Scientific Reports. We are thrilled to have this financial support that will help us continue to provide the legal and technical infrastructure of open systems.

Nature Publishing Group is a visionary group of people with a clear view into the potential of the digital era to enhance scientific communication. They believe in open access and, as the world’s premiere publishing group, they have the authority to lead the rest of the world towards increased OA. We are excited about the launch of Scientific Reports and the way in which it strengthens the long-standing bond between our two organizations.