Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
ACS Publications lists ACS Applied Energy Materials at 4.473 in its summary of the 2020 Journal Citation Reports; a citation should read "4.473 (2020 JCR)", not "current impact factor".
- Is an instance
A site showing one value for this journal and another showing a different value may be reporting a JIF and a CiteScore, or two different data years.
Editorial commentary
ACS Applied Energy Materials is a journal of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Its Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the citation-based figure that Clarivate publishes for it each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). ACS Publications reported 4.473 for the journal in the 2020 JCR; the current value is the one in the newest JCR release, and it is a different number.
What the metric is
The Journal Impact Factor is a journal-level measure of how often a journal’s recent articles are cited. The JCR is Clarivate’s annual report on journal citation impact, and each edition gives a snapshot for that year only. The general definition is in the Journal Impact Factor entry.
How it is calculated
The standard JIF divides the citations a journal receives in the JCR year to items it published in the previous two years by the number of citable items it published in those two years. A 2020 JIF therefore reflects 2020 citations to material from 2018 and 2019.
The 2020 JCR figure
ACS Publications’ own article on the 2020 Journal Citation Reports (published July 1, 2020, based on citations from 2018-2019) lists ACS Applied Energy Materials: 4.473. That is a 2020-release value, and it should be reported with that year attached. It should not be quoted as the journal’s current impact factor, because Clarivate issues a new JCR every year; the 2026 release was published in June 2026, using 2025 citation data.
How to find the current value
- Journal Citation Reports (jcr.clarivate.com). The authoritative source. It is a subscription product, usually available through a research library or a Web of Science subscription.
- Master Journal List (mjl.clarivate.com). A free Clarivate tool that shows which Web of Science Core Collection indexes cover the journal.
- The journal’s own page on pubs.acs.org. If it shows a metric, note which JCR year is attached before you quote it.
Quartile and other metrics
Within JCR, a journal’s quartile (Q1 to Q4) is its rank position within its assigned subject category, so a journal can sit in different quartiles in different categories. JCR also reports other indicators beyond the JIF, including the 5-year JIF, the Journal Citation Indicator, the Eigenfactor Score and the Immediacy Index. Elsevier’s CiteScore is a separate metric, built from Scopus data with a different window, and it will not equal the JIF for the same journal; see CiteScore vs Impact Factor.
Why websites disagree
Searches for this journal return several different values: third-party sites report differing figures for what looks like the same year. The usual causes are that one site shows a JIF and another a CiteScore, that the data years differ, that a site has not updated since the last June release, or that figures are rounded differently. Treat an undated number as unusable, and cite the JCR edition (for example, “2020 JCR”) with any figure you use. The sibling entry ACS Nano Impact Factor shows the same pattern.
Using it responsibly
A journal’s impact factor describes the journal, not any article, author or proposal in it. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) asks institutions and funders not to use journal-level metrics as a substitute for assessing individual work. For the wider picture of quartiles and what they can and cannot show, see Journal Impact Factor and Quartile Rankings.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ACS Applied Energy Materials impact factor?
The 2020 JCR value listed by ACS Publications is 4.473. The current value is the one in the latest JCR release, which you can read in Journal Citation Reports.
Is a JIF the same as CiteScore?
No. They come from different databases, windows and calculations, so the two numbers for one journal differ.
Sources
- ACS Publications (Axial), “Explore the Research Behind the 2020 Journal Citation Reports,” July 1, 2020: https://axial.acs.org/publishing/2020-journal-citation-reports (checked 2026-10-29).
- Clarivate, Journal Citation Reports: https://clarivate.com/academia-government/scientific-and-academic-research/research-funding-analytics/journal-citation-reports/ (checked 2026-10-29).
- Clarivate, Master Journal List: https://mjl.clarivate.com/ (checked 2026-10-29).
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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