Nature Communications Impact Factor 2025 (Updated June 2026) | IF, Ranking, H-Index & Acceptance Rate

PORTFOLIO CONTEXTWhat Is Nature Communications and Where Does It Fit?

In the hierarchy of academic publishing, Nature itself sits at the summit—an ultra-selective weekly that publishes fewer than 1,000 research papers per year across all disciplines. Below it, the Nature research journals (Nature Medicine, Nature Physics, Nature Chemistry, and 30+ others) serve as discipline-specific gatekeepers. Then there is Nature Communications: the open-access flagship that occupies a deliberately different niche.

Launched in April 2010 by Nature Publishing Group—now Springer Nature—Nature Communications was conceived at a pivotal moment. The open-access movement was gaining institutional momentum, funding agencies were beginning to mandate OA publication, and researchers were increasingly frustrated by paywalls blocking access to publicly funded science. Rather than convert existing subscription journals to OA—a model that would prove controversial and economically complex—Springer Nature created a purpose-built, online-only, fully open-access venue that retained the editorial DNA of the Nature brand.

The journal is editorially independent from Nature and its sibling titles, with its own in-house editorial team based in London, Berlin, New York, and Shanghai. It does not require the extraordinary novelty threshold of Nature—where a paper must represent a paradigm shift—but instead seeks solid, well-executed research that represents a significant advance in its field. This distinction is crucial: Nature Communications is where rigorous, important science that may not be flashy enough for Nature can still find a prestigious home.

2025 PERFORMANCEImpact Factor and Citation Metrics

The 2025 Journal Citation Reports release, published by Clarivate in June 2026, assigns Nature Communications an Impact Factor of 18.1, placing it firmly in Q1 of the Multidisciplinary Sciences category. This represents a measured, stable trajectory rather than dramatic fluctuation—a pattern that, in itself, signals editorial consistency and a sustainable publication model.

Beyond the headline Impact Factor, several secondary metrics help complete the picture. The journal’s CiteScore, calculated by Scopus, sits at approximately 24.8, reflecting the high citation density of its articles across a two-year window. The SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) of approximately 4.5 indicates that the journal receives citations from a portfolio of highly influential sources, not merely high-volume, low-prestige venues. An h-index of 568 demonstrates that a substantial number of papers have accumulated at least 568 citations each—a remarkable indicator of sustained citation depth across a very large corpus.

EDITORIAL MODELThe Nature Communications Model: High Volume, High Standards

Understanding Nature Communications requires understanding what it is not. It is not Nature, where editorial triage rejects 90% of submissions without peer review and publishes fewer than 900 papers annually. It is not PLOS ONE, which accepts a broad range of technically sound research with minimal editorial filtering. It occupies a middle ground that has proven remarkably successful—and occasionally controversial.

The journal operates what might be called a “quality-scaled” model. It maintains a full-time editorial staff of PhD-level professional editors who conduct initial manuscript triage, manage peer review, and make final decisions. Unlike some mega-journals that rely heavily on editorial board members or academic editors, Nature Communications uses in-house editors who are employees of Springer Nature. This creates a more consistent editorial standard and faster decision timelines, though it has also drawn criticism for commercializing editorial judgment.

The publication volume is substantial. In recent years, Nature Communications has published between 7,000 and 8,000 research articles per year—roughly ten times the output of Nature itself. This scale is intentional: it allows the journal to capture a broad swath of high-quality research across all natural sciences, from quantum computing to cancer biology to atmospheric chemistry. The multidisciplinary breadth is genuine, not merely aspirational; the journal actively recruits submissions across physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, and interdisciplinary fields.

What makes the model work financially is the Article Processing Charge (APC). At approximately €5,790 (or ~USD 6,300) per research article, the APC is among the highest in scholarly publishing. Critics argue this creates a barrier for researchers from under-resourced institutions, while proponents note that the fee funds the substantial editorial infrastructure and ensures open access for all readers. Springer Nature has responded to equity concerns with waivers and discounts for authors from certain countries, though eligibility criteria remain strict.

TRAJECTORYHistorical Impact Factor Trend (2017–2025)

Nature Communications was not an overnight success. In its early years, the journal struggled to establish credibility against the entrenched prestige of subscription-based society journals. The Impact Factor climbed steadily as the research community recognized that the journal offered a legitimate, high-visibility alternative to traditional venues.

The 2020–2021 spike deserves particular attention. As COVID-19 research flooded the scientific literature, Nature Communications was uniquely positioned to capture multidisciplinary work that bridged virology, immunology, epidemiology, materials science, and computational modeling. Many of these papers accumulated citations at extraordinary rates, inflating the Impact Factor temporarily. The decline in 2022 and plateau in 2023 represented a return to baseline citation patterns, not a loss of prestige. The climb back to 18.1 in 2025 demonstrates that the journal’s fundamental value proposition—rigorous, visible, open-access science across disciplines—remains compelling to both authors and readers.

SCOPEWhat Does Nature Communications Publish?

The scope is deliberately—and unusually—broad. The journal publishes original research across the biological sciences, chemistry, earth sciences, ecology, engineering, materials science, mathematics, physics, and interdisciplinary research that bridges these fields. Unlike discipline-specific journals that define their boundaries tightly, Nature Communications actively courts cross-disciplinary work.

Each paper is evaluated on two primary criteria: scientific rigor and significance. “Rigor” is straightforward—the methodology must be sound, the data must support the conclusions, and the analysis must be transparent. “Significance” is more nuanced and field-dependent. A paper in condensed matter physics need not revolutionize the field, but it should represent a meaningful advance that will interest specialists and potentially attract attention from adjacent disciplines. A cancer biology paper should provide substantial new insight into mechanisms, therapeutics, or diagnostics, even if it does not immediately change clinical practice.

The journal also publishes Methods articles, Reviews, and Comment pieces, though research articles constitute the overwhelming majority of output. Unlike Nature, which heavily favors conceptual breakthroughs, Nature Communications welcomes comprehensive datasets, technical advances, and negative results that are nonetheless important to the field.

SELECTIVITYAcceptance Rate and the Peer-Review Process

Estimates of the acceptance rate at Nature Communications range from 7% to 10%, though precise figures are not published by Springer Nature. This makes it substantially more selective than broad-scope journals like Scientific Reports or PLOS ONE, but more accessible than Nature (which rejects ~93% of submissions at the editorial triage stage) or the discipline-specific Nature research journals.

The peer-review process follows a structured path. Upon submission, an in-house editor evaluates the manuscript for scope, novelty, and technical soundness. Roughly 50–60% of submissions are rejected at this initial stage without external review—an editorial filter that is arguably the journal’s most important quality control mechanism. Manuscripts that pass triage are sent to two or more external reviewers, typically within the author’s field. The journal encourages reviewers to evaluate both the technical validity and the potential significance of the work.

Review timelines are relatively fast by the standards of high-impact journals. Most authors receive a first decision within 10–15 days for editorial-triage rejections and 30–45 days for externally reviewed manuscripts. This speed is enabled by the in-house editorial team, which can actively manage reviewer invitations and follow-ups more aggressively than academic editors with competing obligations.

One distinctive feature is the “transfer” system common across Nature Portfolio journals. A manuscript rejected from Nature or a Nature research journal can, with author consent, be transferred to Nature Communications along with existing reviewer reports. This streamlined pathway accounts for a meaningful fraction of submissions and helps attract high-quality work that narrowly missed the novelty threshold of its sibling journals.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPEHow Does Nature Communications Compare?

In the ecosystem of multidisciplinary, high-impact journals, Nature Communications competes most directly with Science Advances (AAAS), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and Cell Reports (Cell Press). Each occupies a slightly different position in the prestige-volume-price spectrum.

Science Advances is the closest direct competitor: a fully OA journal from a premier scientific society, publishing across disciplines, with a rigorous peer-review process. Its Impact Factor trails Nature Communications by roughly 4–5 points, and its publication volume is roughly one-third—partly because Science Advances has been more conservative about scaling output. The lower APC at Science Advances may be attractive to cost-sensitive authors, though both fees are substantial.

PNAS is a different animal. Published by the National Academy of Sciences, it carries enormous institutional prestige, particularly in the United States, and has a unique “communicated submission” pathway where NAS members can directly submit manuscripts on behalf of colleagues. Its hybrid OA model—where authors can pay for open access or choose traditional subscription publication—makes it more flexible but also means many PNAS articles remain behind paywalls. The Impact Factor is lower, but the prestige-perception among certain audiences remains exceptionally high.

Cell Reports, while technically focused on life sciences rather than fully multidisciplinary, competes for the same pool of high-quality biology manuscripts. Its Impact Factor is significantly lower, but it benefits from the Cell Press brand and a reputation for fast, rigorous review. Authors choosing between Nature Communications and Cell Reports are often weighing the broader visibility of the former against the focused audience of the latter.

OPEN ACCESSAccess Policy and Article Processing Charges

Nature Communications has been fully open access since its founding in 2010—predating many of the funder mandates that now drive OA adoption. All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction provided the original work is cited. This model ensures that research is immediately accessible to anyone with an internet connection, including researchers in low-income countries, policymakers, journalists, and the general public.

The APC is currently set at approximately €5,790 for a standard research article. This fee covers the costs of editorial staff, peer-review coordination, production, hosting, and archiving. It is substantially higher than the APCs at nonprofit OA journals—eLife, for instance, charges roughly $3,000—but comparable to other high-impact fully OA journals from major commercial publishers. Springer Nature offers APC waivers for corresponding authors based in countries classified by the World Bank as low-income economies, and discounts for lower-middle-income countries. These policies are administered on a case-by-case basis.

A critical policy consideration for prospective authors: because Nature Communications is fully OA, there are no hybrid OA fees, no subscription charges to readers, and no embargo periods. This makes it compliant with virtually all funder open-access mandates, including Plan S, NIH Public Access Policy, and UKRI open-access requirements. For researchers whose funding bodies require immediate open access, Nature Communications offers a straightforward compliance path—albeit at a premium price point.

FAQFrequently Asked Questions About Publishing in Nature Communications