In 2022, R Discovery, a literature search and reading platform, forged a transformative partnership with Springer Nature, a global academic publisher, to make research more accessible to the world. In just one year, this collaboration has resulted in an astounding 75% jump in readership of Springer Nature’s open access (OA) journal articles on R Discovery. Here, we will explore the driving forces behind the partnership and its remarkable benefits for both the publisher and researchers across the world.
Collaborating to ensure a seamless research discovery and reading experience
With over 180 years of propelling science forward as an academic publisher, Springer Nature was keen to broaden the reach of its OA content to researchers worldwide, especially those in emerging countries. This is where R Discovery, a brand by Cactus Communications, emerged as the perfect partner with its global user base and presence across devices. In August 2022, a partnership was announced to make Springer Nature’s repository of high-quality OA research available through R Discovery, offering academics an enhanced way to discover, read, or listen to research across a breadth of subject areas.
Commenting on the partnership, Abhishek Goel, CEO & Co-founder at CACTUS, had said, “Our aim is to bring the most relevant and recently published scientific literature to the fingertips of researchers across the globe. By providing access to full-text open-access papers, we can facilitate content discovery and help save reading time.”
This collaboration enabled Springer Nature to support their commitment to the global research community and allowed us to collectively deliver a seamless experience in research discovery.
Creating a publisher channel on R Discovery app to aid quick discovery and access to research
Understanding the need for researchers to keep up with the latest research and recognizing the inclination of a third of its users to follow esteemed publishers, R Discovery introduced dedicated publisher channels as an added feature. These publisher channels unify scholarly articles from reputable journals published by trusted houses, making it easy for researchers around the world to discover and access content by their preferred publishers in one place.
R Discovery’s personalized recommendations to users played a pivotal role in driving the meteoric rise in Springer Nature’s open access article readership. Both partners collaborated closely, using richer meta-data to continually refine and improve the article recommendation algorithms. The result of this continuous effort, was an enriched experience that helped academics discover the latest, most relevant research and increased user satisfaction over time.
The Result: Significant value for both Springer Nature and researchers worldwide
In just one year, this partnership recorded a 75% jump in the readership of Springer Nature’s OA journals on R Discovery. In fact, more than 25% of users who were interested in Springer Nature’s content opted to follow the publisher channel for regular updates.
Growth trends in the readership of Springer Nature articles on R Discovery
There were a number of factors contributing to this steady growth in readership of Springer Nature OA articles on R Discovery, including:
- The introduction of Springer Nature’s publisher channel significantly improved the visibility of its open access research articles among R Discovery’s more than 2.5 million users across 192 countries.
- R Discovery’s personalized recommendations, which received positive feedback from 93% of our users, increased the discoverability of the publisher’s OA content.
- R Discovery’s innovative features, including audio streaming for on-the-go research consumption and AI translation capabilities that allows users to read and listen to research in their own language, further elevated the appeal of Springer Nature’s content.
- With diversified feed options, including Open Access feeds, journal feeds, and publisher channels, users had the choice to discover and explore content aligned with their interests.
- The OA research articles got highest interest from researchers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, India, and Canada as well as several emerging markets.
- Researchers were most interested in Springer Nature’s OA articles in the fields of science, technology, medicine, humanities, and social sciences.
The R Discovery and Springer Nature collaboration underlines how strategic partnerships can create value for academic publishers and researchers, by amplifying dissemination of knowledge and improving access to research on a global scale. Not only can you tap R Discovery’s more than 2.5 million researcher base and leverage its user-friendly features to improve the visibility and readership of published research, you can also target specific subject areas and geographies as per your priorities.
If you are interested in owning a publisher channel on R Discovery, please write to us at discovery@researcher.life and we will be happy to make this happen.
R Discovery is a literature search and research reading app that uses your interests to instantly create personalized reading feeds. Researchers can stay updated on the latest, most relevant content from its continually expanding library of 115M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex as well as prestigious publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more. The top-rated app in its space, R Discovery’s carefully curated features give you the power to choose what, where, and how you read research.
Try the app for free or upgrade to R Discovery Prime, which unlocks unlimited access to app-only features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, invite collaborators, auto sync with reference managers and more. It’s like having the world of research at your fingertips! Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Get R Discovery Prime now at just US$39 a year!
