As for research integrity, Springer Nature, which has been driving discovery for more than 180 years by helping the global research community and publishing their research papers, is investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure originality, a top executive said.
“AI is a big opportunity for us. We are investing big in AI because we believe it helps improve the publishing process in terms of protecting integrity, because we can see if images have been manipulated,” Frank Vranken Peters, CEO and management board member of Springer Nature, said in an interview.
“We are using AI a lot. About a third of the investment we are making in AI is really focused on research and technology,” he said.
He said, “AI helps us find editors and reviewers. It helps make the lives of editors and reviewers easier. We are very clear that AI should be used ethically.”
India is the company’s largest location and 20% of its employees are based here. The company is planning to increase the number of employees here. “We are increasing our workforce. We will be increasing our workforce,” he said.
He stressed, “In terms of people, we are making a lot of progress. And I hope that will continue to happen. Because India and China are important for us.”
He said that despite geopolitical tensions and trade barriers through tariffs, investment in research and development is increasing, which means there are more researchers, which means more research papers.
“As a result, I would say we are, in general, a fairly resilient business.” He added.
Stating that the company has outperformed the market, he said it has been able to gain market share as a result of the reputation of its magazines.
“And on top of that, we’ve made a lot of investments in technology to support the publishing process, but also in launching new magazines,” he said.
“We have invested in launching the collection. And we have also expanded our footprint in Asia, because first of all, of course, the important growth markets are China and India,” he said.
Our focus is really on bringing in more reviewers and editors from India as well.
The company has launched the third edition of its India Research Tour, in which its executives visit universities to expose aspiring researchers to high-quality research.
India Research Tour 2025 was launched at ICSSR, Delhi in collaboration with the Ministry of Education on October 6, 2025. The tour will cover 29 institutions across 7 states, culminate at Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar and interact with 5,000 researchers.
The focus is on integrity, inclusivity and innovation; To bring outreach, training and awareness to institutions in Eastern and North-Eastern India.
“It’s a great initiative. You can’t make it more practical than someone going to a university. We have the Springer Nature Ambassador programme, which essentially works with young researchers at universities to help them,” Mr Peters said.
“There are a lot of concerns about the integrity of the research. So how do they find the right path, what’s allowed, what’s not allowed, what are credible journals, what are not.” He added.
Answering a question on current trends in research, he said that a lot of research is being done in applied sciences, followed by life sciences.
“And then there are very specific areas like AI, computer science. Social sciences have also really evolved in the last two or three years. In India it is more social science than in China,” he said.
published – October 16, 2025 08:15 am IST
