EU approves Nature-Springer merger

A planned merger between the publisher of the journal Nature and the Springer group has received the green light from the European Commission.

The venture will see Germany’s Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, which owns the Macmillan Science and Education group and publishes journals including Nature and Scientific American, combine with the Netherlands-based Springer Science+Business Media company, which produces more than 2,900 academic publications.

The Commission approved the merger on 1 April, ruling that it is not expected to damage competition in the publishing industry.