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

Posts, comments, and users that violate the Communities’ terms of use, or these guidelines, may be removed.

1. Sharing relevant content and choosing a channel

When uploading your contributions to the Communities, please ensure it is relevant to the Communities and the research 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’, ‘On the Road’). This ensures the visibility of your post and helps other users 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. 

The Springer Nature Research Communities are not moderated. However, please note that content posted on the Communities platform 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.

2. Avoiding sales and promotions 

Please ensure that your posts are not of a promotional nature. 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, however, 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 Communities’ members, but please do not share posts of a marketing or sales nature 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 Community 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.

3. Using copyrighted content

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 unlawful and subject to removal of your content. 

Please note that the Communities team reserves the right to use any content posted on the platform.

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

4. 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 on creating your profile on the ‘About the Community’ channel.

5. Avoiding libellous or abusive language 

We ask that you please remain polite and consider your content and comments. Please be polite. 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 Communities contributions that are:

• Defamatory, false or misleading;
• Insulting, threatening or abusive;
• Obscene, 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 is not able to 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.

6. Public forums 

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. 

Please don’t post inappropriate links. You may only share links to another website if the content on that other site abides with these guidelines and our Website Terms of Use, and if that other website allows you to post links to their website.

7. Declaring conflicts of interest

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

8. Reposting content

When creating content within the Communities, we do not typically allow publication of content on the Communities that has already been published on another website or platform. We ask that all content published on the Communities is relevant and tailored to the Research Communities and their audience.

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

9. Including citations and links

To help other Communities members understand your contributions and their relevance to the field, we ask that you include links or references to published research articles, books, policy documents or conference proceedings. Blog posts where no supporting links or references are present 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 only post 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.

10. Sharing opinions

The Springer Nature 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 (eg. in a News and Opinions post), we ask that you consider the audience of your contribution and how they might perceive it. We recommend that you relate opinions back to scientific research to help other users understand the context of the discussion. Such demonstrations of academic rigour ensure that other users are able fully engage with your contributions. If you have any questions, please do contact the team.

11. Ensuring accessibility for fellow Communities’ members

When writing your post, be sure to consider how accessible it may be to other users of the Communities. How might others perceive your contribution(s)? 

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 to images and videos. 

Please keep in mind that other users might navigate the Communities using different devices, i.e. 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.

Our Communities are composed of a diverse range of people, both contributors and readers! The more accessible and engaging your post is, the more our Communities’ members will enjoy reading it. You can find out more on how to improve the accessibility of your blog posts here. Have a look at our ‘How to write an engaging blog post’ article for further tips

12. Language and proofreading your content

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

Please write your post in English first to make the content accessible to the Communities’ international audience. If you would like to incorporate another language into your post, you are most welcome to include this below the English version.

13. Setting blog length

We recommend a blog length of around 1000 words, with a minimum blog length of 750 words. 

Posts that are composed of a single short paragraph, or two small paragraphs, cannot provide the context and sufficient content for Communities members to engage with and so are not deemed valuable contributions to the Communities. In these cases, posts may be 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.

14. Reporting inappropriate content

Please help us to maintain high standards of content and engagement within our Communities by reporting a 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. If you are aware that a contribution has been removed, we ask that you please do not deliberately resubmit it on any Communities’ forum. 

If a post removed by the Communities’ team following the identification of a breach of guidelines or terms of website use is republished without adequate amendments, the user may have their contributor rights removed or have their account suspended from the Communities.

We reserve the right to remove contributor permissions, permanently suspend or remove any user account that has been found to breach these guidelines or the Communities’ Terms and Conditions.

15. Confidentiality policies

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 journal contact.

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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 on the Communities.