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Nature Portfolio

Logo: Springer employee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

Scientific publishing company

Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, and online databases, in addition to offering services in science and medicine. Nature Research's flagship publication is Nature, a weekly multidisciplinary journal first published in 1869.2 It was founded by Alexander Macmillan.1 It employed 800 people.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1999Founded1

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Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, and online databases, in addition to offering services in science and medicine.2

Corporate structure

Nature Portfolio is part of a group headed by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. 100 entities, 14 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

  • Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Stuttgart, Germany
    • Springer Nature 53% · Berlin, Germany
      • Nature Portfolio London
      • Apress Subsidiary · New York City
      • BioMed Central Subsidiary · London
      • J.B. Metzler Subsidiary · Stuttgart, Germany
      • Macmillan Education Subsidiary · London
      • Palgrave Macmillan Subsidiary · Basingstoke
      • Prensa Científica Subsidiary
      • Springer Medizin Subsidiary · Berlin, Germany
      • Springer Nature (Netherlands) Subsidiary · Dordrecht, Netherlands
      • Springer Nature America Subsidiary · New York City
      • Springer Science+Business Media Subsidiary · Luxembourg
      • Springer VS Subsidiary · Wiesbaden
      • SPRINGER NATURE CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER GMBH Subsidiary · 100% · Heidelberg, Germany
      • ASA Press Subsidiary · Switzerland
      • Figshare Subsidiary
      • Scientific American Subsidiary
      • Springer Healthcare Subsidiary · United Kingdom
      • Springer Nature (China) Subsidiary · China
      • Springer Nature Limited Subsidiary · London, United Kingdom
      • Springer Nature Switzerland AG Subsidiary · Switzerland
      • SPRINGER NATURE TWO GMBH Subsidiary · Berlin, Germany
        • SPRINGER NATURE DEUTSCHLAND GMBH Subsidiary · 100% · Berlin, Germany
          • 1 more
      • Springer Vienna Subsidiary
      • SPRINGER-VERLAG GMBH Subsidiary · Vienna, Austria
      • SPRINGER-VERLAG GMBH Subsidiary · Berlin, Germany
      • SpringerOpen Subsidiary · Switzerland
      • and 1 more
    • GvH Vermögensverwaltungsgesellschaft XXXIII mbH Stuttgart, Germany
    • Macmillan Publishers Basingstoke, United Kingdom
      • St. Martin's Press Subsidiary · New York City
        • St. Martin's Griffin Subsidiary
        • Thomas Dunne Books Subsidiary · United States
      • Tor Publishing Group Subsidiary · Equitable Building, United States
        • Forge Books Subsidiary
        • Tor Books Subsidiary · Equitable Building
        • Nightfire Subsidiary
        • Orb Books Subsidiary
        • Tor Essentials Subsidiary · New York City, United States
        • Tor Fantasy Subsidiary · New York City, United States
        • Tordotcom Publishing Subsidiary
      • PAN MACMILLAN PUBLISHING INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED Subsidiary · 99.99% · New Delhi, India
      • Feiwel and Friends Subsidiary
      • Flatiron Books Subsidiary · United States
      • Kingfisher Books Subsidiary
      • Macmillan Audio Subsidiary · United States
      • Macmillan London Subsidiary
      • Macmillan Nig. Publishers Ltd. Subsidiary · Lagos, Nigeria
      • Mantle Subsidiary
      • Red Globe Press Subsidiary
      • Square Fish Subsidiary
      • St. Martin's Publishing Group Subsidiary
      • Tor UK Subsidiary
    • Argon Verlag Subsidiary · Berlin, Germany
    • Digital Science Subsidiary · London
      • metaphacts Subsidiary · Walldorf, Germany
      • Altmetric Subsidiary · United Kingdom
      • Dimensions Subsidiary
      • Ontopic Subsidiary
    • Droemer Knaur Subsidiary · Munich
    • Farrar, Straus and Giroux Subsidiary · New York City
      • North Point Press Subsidiary · San Francisco
      • MCD | Farrar, Straus and Giroux Subsidiary
      • Sarah Crichton Books Subsidiary
    • Henry Holt and Company Subsidiary · New York City
      • Metropolitan Books Subsidiary · United States
    • Kiepenheuer & Witsch Subsidiary · Cologne
    • Macmillan Learning Subsidiary · New York City
    • NetDoktor Subsidiary · Munich, Germany
    • Picador Subsidiary · London
    • Prognos AG Subsidiary · Basel
    • Rowohlt Verlag Subsidiary · Hamburg
    • S. Fischer Verlag Subsidiary · Frankfurt am Main
    • ZEIT Sprachen Subsidiary · Planegg, Germany
    • Zeitverlag Subsidiary · Hamburg, Germany
    • DIGITAL SCIENCE UK LIMITED Subsidiary · 88% · London, United Kingdom
    • Die Zeit Subsidiary · Germany
    • Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (United States) Subsidiary · Delaware, United States
    • Neobooks Subsidiary · Germany

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Founded by Alexander Macmillan in 1999.1

Leadership

Who has led Nature Portfolio, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

Products and brands

  • scientific journal

Listed on Wikidata.1

Journals

As of 2020, Nature Research publishes 156 academic journals. The former Nature Clinical Practice series was rebranded and folded into the Nature Reviews series in 2009. They also publish the npj (Nature Partner Journals) series.

Access and pricing

In most cases, the costs of Springer Nature's publications are recovered via subscription to individuals and institutions. Over 40 journals allow their authors to publish open access articles, with the author (or their institution or research funder) paying a publication charge to the journal. The publisher also has several open access journals. Authors are also allowed to post accepted, unedited papers on their websites or the funding body's archives no earlier than 6 months after publication.

In June 2010, a letter outlining the University of California libraries' pricing challenges with NPG was distributed to university faculty by campus librarians with the support of the systemwide University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication. The letter also described a potential boycott if the dispute was not resolved. In August 2010, a joint statement was released stating "Our two organizations have agreed to work together in the coming months to address our mutual short- and long-term challenges, including an exploration of potential new approaches and evolving publishing models."

In December 2014, NPG announced that it would make content from all of Nature's journals available online for free. However, articles are presented using the digital rights management system ReadCube (which is funded by the Macmillan subsidiary Digital Science), which only provides "read-only" access, and does not allow readers to download, copy, print, or otherwise distribute the content. Additionally, links to these articles can only be generated by Nature subscribers and a group of selected media outlets, but the links can be publicly distributed through online articles and social networks afterwards. Providers can also provide annotations on the linked articles. The move was designed to counter the trend of "dark sharing", while leveraging ReadCube to provide analytics. While considering it a compromise between fully restricted access, critics do not consider this to be a true open access scheme due to its restrictions on use and distribution.

Read the full text

Textbooks

In 2011, Nature launched its first line of electronic textbooks for the college market, starting with Principles of Biology, which was adopted by California State University. The textbook line has been described by Vikram Savkar, senior vice president and publishing director at then Nature Publishing Group, as potentially breaking down the traditional textbook publishing model.

Other services

Other active Nature Portfolio services include:

Nature Careers, containing careers news, advice, tools and jobs for scientists.

A companion site to ENCODE, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, which is a project funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute to identify all regions of transcription, transcription factor association, chromatin structure and histone modification in the human genome sequence.

Nature Index, an open database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The Index tracks contributions to research articles published in high-quality natural-science and health-science journals, chosen based on reputation by an independent group of researchers. The database is compiled by Nature Research Intelligence, part of Springer Nature.

Past experiments at offering online services include:

Scitable (a collaborative learning space for science students).

The pre-print server Nature Precedings (which was discontinued in 2012).

Connotea (a free online reference management service for scientists, which was created in 2004 and discontinued in 2013).

Nature Network (a free social networking website for scientists, which was put into read-only mode in 2013).

From Wikipedia’s article on Nature Portfolio, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Owners

Former owners and parents

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 2015Acquired Acquired by Springer Nature1
  2. 1999Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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