Journal metrics

This page provides information on peer review performance and citation metrics for the Nature Portfolio journals. Data are collected annually for full calendar years. More information regarding the release of these data can be found here. Click here to download our quick reference guide to journal metrics.

Nature Portfolio is a signatory of San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (see here for more information about our endorsement). We believe that Impact Factor is just one of a number of metrics that can be used to evaluate a journal, and a small number of highly cited papers can have a disproportionate effect on the mean number of citations per paper.

On this page

• 2019 Peer Review Metrics
• 2019 Journal Metrics
• Definitions
• Editorials and other content

2019 Peer Review Metrics

Submission to first editorial decision: the median time (in days) from when a submission is received to when a first editorial decision about whether the paper was sent out for formal review or not is sent to the authors.

Submission to first post-review decision: for manuscripts that are sent to external reviewers, the median time (in days) taken from when a submission is received to when a editorial decision post-review is sent to the authors.

Submission to Accept: the median time (in days) from the published submission date to the final editorial acceptance date.

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2019 Journal Metrics

On this page you will find a suite of citation-based metrics for Nature Portfolio journals including Nature, the Nature reviews and research journals, Scientific Reports, Scientific Data and the Nature Partner Journals which provide an overview of these journals. Because the median is not subject to the distortions from outliers, we have developed and provided the 2-year Median, derived from Web of Science data and defined as the median number of citations received in 2019 for articles published in 2017 and 2018 in Nature, the Nature research and reviews journals and Scientific Reports. The distribution of citations for Nature, Nature Communications and Scientific Reports are shown below. Brief definitions for each of the metrics used to measure the influence of our journals are included below the tables. More information regarding the approach taken to derive the median citation can be found here. Article-level metrics are also available on each article page, allowing readers to track the reach of individual papers.

Commentaries on Impact Factors and their use and misuse can be found in our editorials and other content, going back for many years, links to a sample of which are provided at the end of the page.

As described above, Nature Portfolio has produced the 2-year Median in the table below. All other data has been produced by Clarivate Analytics.

Journal metrics are based on the published output, thus those that are calculated from the output in multiple years will use a partial dataset for recently launched journals.

While the metrics presented here are not intended to be a definitive list, we hope that they will prove to be informative. The page is updated on an annual basis.

The distribution of citations for Nature, Nature Communications and Scientific Reports showing citations accumulated in 2019 to citable items published in 2017 and 2018. The distributions were calculated according to the methodology described in Larivière, V. et al., A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions. Preprint at bioRxiv doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/062109 (2016).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Definitions

2-year Impact Factor:

The Journal Impact Factor is defined as all citations to the journal in the current JCR year to items published in the previous two years, divided by the total number of scholarly items (these comprise articles, reviews, and proceedings papers) published in the journal in the previous two years. (Courtesy of Clarivate Analytics)

5-year Impact Factor:

The 5-year journal Impact Factor, available from 2007 onward, is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year. It is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the five previous years. (Courtesy of Clarivate Analytics)

Immediacy index:

The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the year it is published. The journal Immediacy Index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited. (Courtesy of Clarivate Analytics)

Eigenfactor® Score:

The Eigenfactor Score calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals. References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation. (Courtesy of Clarivate Analytics)

Article Influence Score:

The Article Influence Score determines the average influence of a journal's articles over the first five years after publication. It is calculated by multiplying the Eigenfactor Score by 0.01 and dividing by the number of articles in the journal, normalized as a fraction of all articles in all publications. This measure is roughly analogous to the 5-Year Journal Impact Factor in that it is a ratio of a journal's citation influence to the size of the journal's article contribution over a period of five years. (Courtesy of Clarivate Analytics)

2-year Median:

The median number of citations received in 2017 for articles published in in 2015 and 2016. Data from Web of Science was used; more information regarding the details of article categories and approach taken to derive the median citation can be found here. (Nature Portfolio Data)

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Editorials and other content

• Nature and the Nature journals are diversifying their presentation of performance indicators. Nature. Time to remodel the journal impact factor, July 2016
• The journal impact factor is a much-criticized yet still-used number. As with any metric, it should not be used uncritically and without an understanding of what it measures. Nature Methods. On Impact, August 2015.
• Use these ten principles to guide research evaluation, urge Diana Hicks, Paul Wouters and colleagues. Nature. Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics, 22 April 2015.
• The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), an initiative spearheaded by the American Society for Cell Biology, aims to reform research assessment. Nature Cell Biology. Ending the tyranny of the impact factor, January 2014.
• In deciding how to judge the impact of research, evaluators must take into account the effects of emphasizing particular measures — and be open about their methods. Nature. The maze of impact metrics, 17 October 2013.
• As the journal's first impact factor is released, it is time to reflect on journal metrics and how Nature Climate Change has been making its mark. Nature Climate Change. Having an impact, July 2013.
• Citation analyses can condense scholarly output into numbers, but they do not live up to peer review in the evaluation of scientists. Online usage statistics and commenting could soon enable a more refined assessment of scientific impact. Nature Materials. Measuring impact, July 2011.
• The classic impact factor is outmoded. Is there an alternative for assessing both a researcher's productivity and a journal's quality? Nature Immunology. Ball and chain, October 2010.
• Nature Metrics special, June 2010. The value of scientific output is often measured, to rank one nation against another, allocate funds between universities, or even grant or deny tenure. Scientometricians have devised a multitude of 'metrics' to help in these rankings. Do they work? Are they fair? Are they over-used? Nature investigates.
• Transparency, education and communication are key to ensuring that appropriate metrics are used to measure individual scientific achievement. Nature. Assessing Assessment, 17 June 2010.
• Research assessment rests too heavily on the inflated status of the impact factor. Nature. Not-so-deep impact, 23 June 2005.

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