The Research Communities aim to be a welcoming and inclusive space to share and explore the latest published research, engage in discussion, and connect with the global research community. We expect all members of the Research Communities to adhere to the below guidelines and our Website Terms of Use to ensure that the Communities are an engaging, inclusive and accessible place for all our members.

 Posts, comments, and users that violate the Communities’ Website Terms of Use, or these guidelines, may be removed.

1. Joining and contributing to the Communities

1.1 Joining the Communities

Anyone with an interest in research is welcome to register to join the Research Communities. Individuals without a formal affiliation to a research group, institution, or company may join the Communities to build connections and stay informed. Contribution opportunities are intended for active members of the research community with recognised expertise or publications.

1.2 Contributing content

Contribution to the Communities, such as publishing blog posts, is reserved for established researchers and invited authors. Contributors typically include researchers who have been invited to write about their published work, as well as past authors, editors, and Springer Nature affiliates.    

If you’d like to contribute but are uncertain if the Communities are the right platform for you, please contact the Research Communities team who will be happy to help you find the best way forward.

1.3 Managing contributions

The Research Communities by Springer Nature are not moderated. However, please note that content posted on the Communities is reviewed by the team to help ensure that posts are relevant and useful to other Communities’ members. We may contact you if we think that your post might benefit from revision or if it does not adhere to these guidelines      . 

Please do not ‘spam’ or flood the Communities with posts. Users who publish multiple blogs at once or over a short period of time will be contacted by the team, may have their contributor permissions revoked, and/or their account removed. 

2. Conduct and Community Standards

2.1 Upholding user authenticity

Do not impersonate another person or violate someone else's privacy. This is a public forum, and your personal information may be visible to others. Your profile should reflect you and not an affiliated business, team, or an institution. Any accounts that are found to be impersonating others or that represent a business, group, or organisation will be removed.

We encourage you to complete your profile and keep it up to date. We’ve created a useful guide to creating your profile in the Help and Support Channel.

2.2 Avoiding libellous, harmful or abusive language

We ask that you remain polite and consider your content and comments. Please do not use swear words, profane, crude or sexual language, or include language, images or videos that may be distressing to others.   You should not make or encourage contributions that are:

• Defamatory, false or misleading;
•  Insulting, threatening or abusive;
• Obscene, insensitive, or of a sexual nature;
• Offensive, racist, sexist, homophobic or discriminatory against any religion or group.

Any content that is found to be unsuitable will be removed. 

The Communities team cannot investigate any claims or accusations made against individuals, teams, or organisations. If you have a concern or issue of this nature, please contact the relevant organisation or your institutional HR department. 

2.3 Using public forums responsibly  

Once your contribution is online, everyone with access to the internet may be able to view it. Please bear in mind that you are legally responsible for the content you submit. 

When adding comments to any content or discussion in the Communities, please ensure that the comment is respectful and relevant. Irrelevant or otherwise disrespectful comments may be removed. 

If you use images or imagery that others may find upsetting (e.g. images of surgery or medical procedures), please include a disclaimer at the top of your post to let readers know. 

2.4 Declaring conflicts of interest

Please clearly disclose any potential conflicts of interest associated with your content, if applicable.

3. Creating and sharing content 

3.1 Sharing relevant content and choosing the right Channel

When uploading your contributions to the Research Communities, please ensure they are relevant to the Communities and the Topic(s) you are selecting, and consider which Channel would be best suited to the style of your post (e.g. Behind the Paper, News and Opinion, Life in Research). This helps with the visibility of your post and ensures other users can discover your contributions. If you’re having trouble deciding which Channel or Topic your post fits into, have a look at our Channel guide .   If you have any questions regarding the style of your article, please do not hesitate to contact the Communities team. 

3.2 Citing sources and including links

To help other Communities members understand your contributions and their relevance to a research field, we ask that you include links or references to published research articles, books, policy documents or conference proceedings. Blog posts with no supporting links or references may be removed. 

Please attribute quotes and paraphrased comments to their correct sources. If you would like to include in-text citations or a small bibliography, you are more than welcome to do so. 

Links can be useful to allow users to navigate the Communities and beyond. However, please try to provide readers with some context to help them understand what the link is for. For example, avoid using ‘click here’ and instead describe where the link will take the reader. 

Please do not post irrelevant or inappropriate links. You may only share links to another website if the content of that site abides with these guidelines and our Website Terms of Use and is relevant to your contribution. If you are unsure, please check with the website in question.

3.3 Sharing opinions

The Research Communities aim to provide a platform for research-associated conversation and connection, including opportunities to showcase your latest work and share the latest news and your scientific opinions.

When sharing your opinions with the Communities (e.g. in a News and Opinion post), we ask that you consider your audience and how they might perceive it. You should relate opinions back to scientific research to help other users understand the context of the discussion and how you came to your conclusions. Such demonstrations of academic rigour ensure that readers are able fully engage with your contributions.

3.4 Setting blog length

We advise a blog length of ~1000 words, with a minimum blog length of 750 words. 

Posts that are comprised of one or two short paragraphs cannot provide sufficient context for readers to engage with and are not deemed valuable contributions to the Communities. This also applies to posts that are excessively long (>1500 words), or posts with text that has been copied and pasted from an original research article and not adapted for the intended blog format. In these cases, we may reach out to you to make edits to your post(s). Failure to make the requested changes to adhere with these guidelines may lead to your contributions being removed.

For video content, please accompany your video with a (min 500 words) written explanation of what is shown in the video itself. This is to ensure that videos are accessible to all members of the Communities, particularly for cases when subtitles or text are not included in the video.

3.5 Language, clarity and proofreading your content

Please ensure that your post and comments are in English first to make sure the content is accessible to the global readership of the Research Communities . If you would like to incorporate another language into your post, you are welcome to include this below the English version. 

Please proofread and edit your content carefully. We want to help you reach the widest possible audience with your post. If you have any questions on audience, language or tone, you are welcome to share your questions with the Communities team.   

3.6 Ensuring accessibility

When writing your post, be sure to consider how accessible it is to other members and readers.

The Research Communities provide a space for the global research community and beyond to come together to share and explore the latest research. This may mean that not everyone is familiar with acronyms and references from a particular field. We encourage you to make your writing clear and easily understandable. This may involve using headers, adding alt text to your images, avoiding unnecessary jargon and acronyms, and including captions for images and videos. 

Please keep in mind that other users might navigate the Communities using different devices, (e.g. computers or laptops, mobile phones, tablets, e-readers), and consume the content via different media (e.g. audio, text, or video). Where possible, please ensure that captions are included in your audiovisual content and your post is well structured to be engaged with through different devices.

The Research Communities welcome a diverse range of people, both contributors and readers! The more accessible and engaging your post is, the more members will enjoy reading and engaging with it. You can find out more on how to improve the accessibility of your blog posts here.   

4. Content boundaries

4.1 Pre-prints, un-published, self-published, and non-peer-reviewed content  

We do not accept blog posts that are written about a pre-print, or an article that has been shared before it has been peer reviewed. This is to ensure that Research Communities blog posts uphold a high degree of scientific and academic rigour. Posts describing pre-prints    , un-published, self-published and non-peer-reviewed research may be removed. 

Blog posts not directly discussing a published paper or book are welcome in Channels like News and Opinion. All content discussing scientific or academic concepts and ideas is expected to refer back to published papers, books, reports, or other scientific materials. In line with our moderation practices, content that does not align with these guidelines may be removed.

4.2 Avoiding sales, promotions and product endorsements   

Please ensure that your posts are not promotional. We believe that demonstration of expertise is much more valuable than the promotion of a company, product, or service. If you have a product or service that you wish to sell or promote, feel free to contact us about advertising and sponsorship opportunities.  

You are welcome to share information on upcoming events or activities that are relevant, accessible, and open to all Research Communities’ members, but please do not share marketing posts or those intended to sell a product or service, as these will be removed.

Please note that the Research Communities aim to provide a platform to highlight events that are available and accessible to all Communities members. If an event is not free, we ask that you include details of discounts, bursaries or other initiatives that support making it available to a wider audience.

4.3 Confidentiality and sensitive information

All manuscripts submitted to any Springer Nature journal should be treated with utmost confidentiality. Editors, authors and reviewers are required to respect the confidentiality of the peer review process and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond the information released by the journal. 

Blog posts relating to a paper should only be publicly posted after the publication of the manuscript in the journal. Posting before publication may be considered a violation of the manuscript embargo and result in your blog post being removed.

If you have any queries or concerns relating to manuscripts, please get in touch with your relevant publishing contact. 

4.4 AI-generated content 

We encourage you to share your thoughts and work in your own words. If you do use AI tools such as ChatGPT, MetaAI, Google Gemini, Claude, or other AI platforms, please remember that you are responsible for the content you share. Ensure that you check any content and output generated by AI before sharing it and disclose AI use. 

If you use AI to generate text, images, videos, or audio content to include in your blog posts, please include a short declaration statement at the beginning or end of your blog.  

Please note that AI-generated text, images, videos and audio content are subject to all the  Communities’ Guidelines and Website Terms of Use and may be removed if they are in breach of either.

4.5 Reposting existing content

We do not permit publication of content that has already been published on another website or platform. We ask that all content published on the Communities is unique, relevant and tailored to the Research Communities and their audience.

If you wish to share your Communities blog post more widely, including on your own affiliated or institutional website, you are welcome to do so. We ask that you state that the blog post was originally published on the Research Communities, and direct people to the original post (e.g. “This blog post was originally published in the Research Communities by Springer Nature. You can find it here [URL to post]”).

4.6 Using copyrighted material

If you wish to upload an image, video or any other audiovisual content or text, please ensure that you have the right to use it. Posting copyrighted material without permission may be un-lawful and may result in the removal of your content. 

Please note that the Communities team reserves the right to use any content posted on the platform, such as on our various social media accounts.

For more information, please see our Website Terms of Use. If you are unsure whether your contribution could be infringing copyright, please contact the Communities team.  

5. Safety and support

5.1 Reporting inappropriate content

Please help us to maintain high standards of content and engagement by reporting any contribution if you believe that it does not comply with these guidelines or our Website Terms of Use. This applies to content that is in breach of our guidelines and Website Terms of Use only – and not merely content that you may disagree with.

The Communities team reserves the right, although not the obligation, to take down any contribution that we feel to be unsuitable, or which is reported as being unsuitable for the Communities. In such an instance, the author of that contribution will be notified, and we ask that you do not republish the content without making appropriate edits. If a post is republished without adequate amendments, the user may have their contributor rights removed or have their account suspended.

We reserve the right to remove contributor permissions and permanently suspend or remove any user account that has been found to breach these guidelines or the Website Terms of Use.

5.2 Contacting the team

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the Communities’ guidelines, please reach out to our team. Please note that failure to adhere to these guidelines or repeated breaches may result in the removal of content and/or contributor permissions.