Open access (OA) has transformed the way scholarly knowledge is shared, helping to remove barriers between researchers and readers across the globe. But as OA has become increasingly established within the publishing landscape, an important question remains: do the benefits associated with open access continue to hold true in today's more mature ecosystem?
Springer Nature's new white paper, From Access to Impact: How open access shapes research reach, citations and global visibility, explores this question through an analysis of more than 200,000 articles published across 1,800+ hybrid journals. The findings show a substantial advantage for gold OA articles (measured by downloads, citations and Altmetric Attention Score) over both non-OA articles and green OA articles.
What does the evidence show?
According to the findings, gold open access articles receive:
- Almost 7 times as many downloads as non-OA articles
- 50% more citations than green OA and non-OA articles
- Over 5 times higher an Altmetric Attention Score than non-OA articles
- Faster dissemination, gaining almost 3 times more readers in 3 months than a non-OA article gains in an entire year
The analysis also highlights the global reach of open access, with OA supporting broader global visibility with more equitable access to research.
Explore the findings
- To learn more about the research behind these findings, read the white paper: From Access to Impact: How open access shapes research reach, citations and global visibility.
- Explore the accompanying blog on The Researcher's Source, which discusses the findings alongside perspectives from researchers on the benefits of open access publishing: From access to impact: New evidence on the benefits of open access publishing.
- For a quick overview of the headline findings, explore the accompanying infographic, which illustrates how open access can help research travel further, faster and wider.
Source: Springer Nature (2026). From access to impact: How open access shapes research reach, citations, and global visibility [White paper]. https://stories.springernature.com/from-access-to-impact-open-access-research/index.html