Impact Factor of Journals

Impact Factor or Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a metric used to evaluate the relative importance of a journal within its field. It was first introduced in the 1960s by Eugene Garfield.

He also founded the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Science Citation Index (SCI), and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), which are widely used in the academic community to track the impact of scholarly research.

Impact Factor is published annually by Clarivate Analytics in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database.

How to calculate Impact Factor

The impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations received by a journal in a given year to the number of articles published in that journal in the previous two years.

The formula for calculating the impact factor is:

Impact Factor = (Citations in Year Y) / (Number of articles published in Years X and Y-1)

For example, if a journal had 100 citations in year Y and published 50 articles in years X and Y-1, the impact factor for that year would be 2.0 (100/50).

It is important to note that the impact factor is calculated annually, and it is based on the number of citations received in the current year, divided by the number of articles published in the journal in the previous two years.

How to find Impact Factor

There are several ways to find the impact factor of a journal:

1. Journal Citation Reports (JCR) – Subscription Required: To find the JIF of a specific journal, you can search for the journal title on the JCR website, or you can use the JCR search function to filter journals by subject category, publisher, or other criteria. JCR is a database provided by Clarivate Analytics that allows users to search for journals by title and subject area, and it provides the impact factor for each journal, as well as other metrics such as the Eigenfactor and the Citescore.
2. Web of Science – Subscription Required: This is another database provided by Clarivate Analytics that allows users to search for journals and articles, and it provides the impact factor for the journals.

3. Finding Impact Factor from JCR Reports available online : Each JCR report provides detailed information on a specific journal, including:

• Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
• Eigenfactor: This metric is based on the number of times articles from a journal are cited in other journals, and also takes into account the prestige of the journals doing the citing.
• 5-Year Impact Factor: This metric is similar to the JIF, but it is based on citations over a five-year period.
• Article Influence: This metric is a measure of the average influence of articles published in a journal, based on the Eigenfactor score.
• Cited by Count: This metric shows the number of articles that have been cited articles published in the journal.

The JCR report also provides information on the journal’s publisher, ISSN, subject category, and other bibliographic data.

Processed JCR reports are widely available online in the form of PDF, Excel files, and Word documents. A few of them are mentioned below

JCR 2021 – Published in June 2022

JCR 2020 – Published in June 2021

JCR 2019 – Published in June 2020

You can search the impact factor of journals from these JCR reports on the above page using the Ctrl+F option. You can also download the PDF and Excel files available for personal use.

Limitations of Impact Factor

There are several limitations of the impact factor as a measure of journal quality:

1. Time lag: The impact factor is based on citations received in a given year, but it does not take into account the time lag between when an article is published and when it is cited. This means that articles that are published early in the year may not be included in the calculation of the impact factor, even if they eventually receive a high number of citations.
2. Self-citation bias: The impact factor counts all citations, including self-citations, which can artificially inflate the impact factor of a journal.
3. Disciplinary bias: The impact factor is calculated based on the number of articles published in a journal and the number of citations received, but different fields have different citation patterns. For example, journals in the natural sciences tend to have higher impact factors than journals in the social sciences or humanities, even though this does not necessarily reflect the importance of the research in these fields.
4. Does not take into account the diversity of content: The impact factor does not take into account the diversity of content within a journal. It does not differentiate between papers, review papers, letters, etc.
5. Does not account for the alternative metrics: The impact factor is a citation-based metric, but it does not account for other types of impact, such as social media shares, downloads, views, etc. Alternative metrics like Altmetrics are used to measure the impact of a paper in a more comprehensive way.

Due to these limitations, it is important to use the impact factor in conjunction with other metrics and to consider the specific context and characteristics of a journal or research field when evaluating its quality.

Alternative to Impact Factor

Although Impact Factor is one of the widely used journal metrics, it has several limitations and there are alternative metrics that have been developed to address these limitations. Some examples include:

• CiteScore: This is a metric provided by Elsevier that takes into account the number of citations received by a journal over a three-year period, as well as the number of documents published in the journal over the same period.
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): This metric is provided by CWTS Leiden Ranking, it aims to correct for differences in citation practices between fields and takes into account the number of citations received by a journal, as well as the number of documents published in the journal, and the number of citations received by the documents in the same subject area.
• Eigenfactor: This metric is provided by Eigenfactor, it uses a complex algorithm that takes into account the number of citations received by a journal, as well as the number of citations received by the documents that cite the journal.
• h-index: This is a metric that measures the productivity and impact of a researcher or a journal by taking into account the number of papers that have been cited at least h times.
• Altmetrics: This is a set of metrics that aim to measure the impact and influence of scholarly articles in ways that go beyond traditional citation counts. They include metrics such as social media mentions, blog posts, and news articles that mention an article.

Alternative to JCR

Several alternatives to the JCR are used to evaluate the impact and influence of scholarly journals. Some examples include:

• Scopus Journal Metrics: This is a tool provided by Elsevier that allows users to access journal metrics, including the CiteScore, SNIP, and IPP.
• Web of Science Journal Impact Factor: This is a tool provided by Clarivate Analytics that allows users to access journal impact factors, including the Journal Impact Factor, Immediacy Index, and Eigenfactor.
• Google Scholar Metrics: This is a tool provided by Google that allows users to access journal metrics, including the h-index and i10-index.
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): This is a directory of open-access journals that are peer-reviewed and indexed by various databases such as Scopus, PubMed, and JCR.
• Publons: This is a platform for researchers to track, verify, and showcase their peer review and editorial contributions.

It’s worth noting that each of these tools have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s important to evaluate the metrics provided by different sources before making any conclusions about the quality or impact of a journal.

List of Journals with the highest Impact Factor

Sl. No.	Journal name	2022 JIF
1	CA-A CANCER JOURNAL FOR CLINICIANS	254.7
2	LANCET	168.9
3	NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE	158.5
4	JAMA-JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION	120.7
5	NATURE REVIEWS DRUG DISCOVERY	120.1
6	NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY	112.7
7	BMJ-British Medical Journal	105.7
8	NATURE REVIEWS IMMUNOLOGY	100.3
9	NATURE REVIEWS MICROBIOLOGY	88.1
10	Nature Reviews Materials	83.5
11	NATURE MEDICINE	82.9
12	Nature Reviews Disease Primers	81.5
13	Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology	78.8
14	NATURE REVIEWS CANCER	78.5
15	Lancet Respiratory Medicine	76.2
16	World Psychiatry	73.3
17	Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology	65.1
18	NATURE	64.8
19	CELL	64.5
20	Lancet Psychiatry	64.3
21	CHEMICAL REVIEWS	62.1
22	SCIENCE	56.9
23	Nature Energy	56.7
24	LANCET INFECTIOUS DISEASES	56.3
25	LANCET ONCOLOGY	51.1
26	ANNALS OF ONCOLOGY	50.5
27	CANCER CELL	50.3
28	Lancet Public Health	50
29	Nature Reviews Cardiology	49.6
30	LANCET NEUROLOGY	48
31	NATURE METHODS	48
32	NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY	46.9
33	CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS	46.2
34	JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY	45.3
35	Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology	44.5
36	CELL RESEARCH	44.1
37	REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS	44.1
38	NATURE REVIEWS GENETICS	42.7
39	Nature Reviews Earth & Environment	42.1
40	Nature Reviews Nephrology	41.5
41	NATURE MATERIALS	41.2
42	Living Reviews in Relativity	40.6
43	Nature Reviews Endocrinology	40.5
44	Joule	39.8
45	EUROPEAN HEART JOURNAL	39.3
46	Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy	39.3
47	ANNALS OF INTERNAL MEDICINE	39.2
48	JAMA Internal Medicine	39
49	INTENSIVE CARE MEDICINE	38.9
50	Nature Reviews Physics	38.5
51	Nature Nanotechnology	38.3
52	Lancet Microbe	38.2
53	Nature Reviews Neurology	38.1
54	CIRCULATION	37.8
55	Nature Catalysis	37.8
56	PROGRESS IN MATERIALS SCIENCE	37.4
57	Molecular Cancer	37.3
58	CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY REVIEWS	36.8
59	Lancet Child & Adolescent Health	36.4
60	Nature Reviews Chemistry	36.3
61	Annual Review of Pathology-Mechanisms of Disease	36.2
62	Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology	35.7
63	IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials	35.6
64	Nature Photonics	35
65	NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE	34.7
66	Lancet Global Health	34.3
67	Nature Electronics	34.3
68	MMWR-MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY WEEKLY REPORT	33.9
69	MMWR Recommendations and Reports	33.7
70	Nature Reviews Rheumatology	33.7
71	PHYSIOLOGICAL REVIEWS	33.6
72	Cell Discovery	33.5
73	Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics	33.3
74	Energy & Environmental Science	32.5
75	Immunity	32.4
76	Electrochemical Energy Reviews	31.3
77	MATERIALS SCIENCE & ENGINEERING R-REPORTS	31
78	Lancet Digital Health	30.8
79	NATURE GENETICS	30.8
80	Nature Climate Change	30.7
81	NATURE IMMUNOLOGY	30.5
82	Cell Host & Microbe	30.3
83	PHYSICS REPORTS-REVIEW SECTION OF PHYSICS LETTERS	30
84	Nature Human Behaviour	29.9
85	Annual Review of Immunology	29.7
86	PROGRESS IN ENERGY AND COMBUSTION SCIENCE	29.5
87	ADVANCED MATERIALS	29.4
88	Gastroenterology	29.4
89	BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES	29.3
90	Cell Metabolism	29
91	JAMA Neurology	29
92	Journal of Hematology & Oncology	28.5
93	JAMA Oncology	28.4
94	Nature Microbiology	28.3
95	Cancer Discovery	28.2
96	JOURNAL OF INFECTION	28.2
97	Nature Biomedical Engineering	28.1
98	Advanced Energy Materials	27.8
99	Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics	27.7
100	Nature Sustainability	27.6

Click here to download the above list of highest impact factor journals

Related Information

Download list (12,000+) of Journal Abbreviation

What is a good Impact Factor for a Journal