Heliyon Impact Factor: No Current JIF

Heliyon’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Heliyon's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, illustrative instance of the general Journal Impact Factor metric published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- with a current wrinkle: Heliyon does not have an active JIF as of this writing (last verified 2026-08-16). Heliyon, launched by Elsevier/Cell Press in 2015, is a broad-scope, open-access megajournal that peer-reviews submissions for technical and ethical soundness rather than perceived novelty. Clarivate placed Heliyon on hold in Web of Science indexing in September 2024 (the same month as Cureus) and lifted that hold on 2026-05-14, per Retraction Watch's reporting, following an Elsevier internal audit that Retraction Watch reports resulted in roughly 1,197 corrections including approximately 687 retractions (RW-sourced, not Clarivate-confirmed). Because its citation data was suppressed for part of the assessment window, Heliyon did not receive a JIF in the June 2026 JCR release; Clarivate is expected to issue one in the October 2026 release instead. CASRAI attempted direct verification against Elsevier's own Heliyon pages (sciencedirect.com/journal/heliyon, cell.com/heliyon/home) this session; both returned HTTP 403 and could not be read. Any pre-hold aggregator figure (historically reported near 4.3 for the 2024 data year) should be treated as superseded historical background, not a current, citable number.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 17 Aug 2026

Ask about Heliyon’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

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Worked examples

Is an instance

A researcher checking Cell Press's own Heliyon page or Clarivate's Master Journal List directly for current indexing status and any newly-issued October 2026 Impact Factor, rather than citing a pre-hold aggregator figure from 2024.

Is an instance

An author correctly noting that Heliyon's CiteScore (Elsevier/Scopus) remained available throughout the Web of Science hold, while its Clarivate JIF was suspended for the same period -- the two metrics are computed independently and were not both affected.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

Citing a 'current Heliyon impact factor' of approximately 4.3 as though it were an active, up-to-date figure -- that number predates Heliyon's September 2024 Web of Science hold and has not been reissued as of this writing.

Not an instance

Assuming Heliyon's May 2026 relisting means a new Impact Factor was immediately published -- Clarivate is expected to issue Heliyon's JIF in the October 2026 JCR release, not immediately upon relisting.

Searches for Heliyon’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) currently have an unusual honest answer: Heliyon does not have an active, current Impact Factor as of this writing (last verified 2026-08-16). Like the general Journal Impact Factor entry this page illustrates, the JIF is a citation ratio Clarivate calculates annually from a journal’s Web of Science-indexed data and publishes in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — but Heliyon spent roughly 20 months on a Clarivate-imposed indexing hold, which interrupted that cycle.

Current status: no active Impact Factor as of August 2026

Clarivate placed Heliyon (published by Elsevier as part of the Cell Press family) ‘on hold’ in its Web of Science indexing in September 2024, alongside Cureus, which was placed on hold the same month and later fully delisted. Per Retraction Watch’s reporting, Clarivate lifted the hold on Heliyon on 2026-05-14, after Elsevier ran an internal editorial audit of the journal. Because Heliyon’s citation data was suppressed from Web of Science for part of the JCR assessment window, it did not receive a Journal Impact Factor in the June 2026 JCR release (the edition covering the 2025 data year) that most other Web of Science-indexed journals received. A JIF for Heliyon is expected in the October 2026 JCR release instead — a delayed, journal-specific figure rather than the standard annual June cycle. As of this writing, no current JIF has been published for Heliyon. Confirm the live status directly against Clarivate’s Master Journal List or Cell Press’s own Heliyon page before citing a number, since this is a live, checkable status that will change once the October 2026 figure is issued.

What led to the hold, and what changed

Per Retraction Watch’s reporting — not a figure Clarivate itself has published — Elsevier’s internal audit of Heliyon resulted in roughly 1,197 corrections, including approximately 687 retractions, addressing article-quality and integrity concerns that had accumulated at the journal. Treat these specific counts as REPORTED-tier (sourced to Retraction Watch’s coverage, not fetched directly from Clarivate or Elsevier), since CASRAI could not independently confirm them against a Clarivate-published statement this session. Clarivate has not published a detailed public rationale of its own for either the original hold or the relisting decision; the sequence above reflects secondary reporting, cross-checked against Retraction Watch’s own article headlines during this revision.

Publisher verification attempted and blocked

CASRAI attempted to verify Heliyon’s current status directly against Elsevier’s own pages — both sciencedirect.com/journal/heliyon and cell.com/heliyon/home — during this revision. Both returned an HTTP 403 (bot-protection) response and could not be read. Clarivate’s own JCR platform is a subscription/institutional-login application and is not independently checkable by CASRAI either. Given that, no current JIF figure is stated as fact on this page; readers who need the authoritative, release-dated number should check Cell Press’s Heliyon page or their institution’s JCR access directly, particularly once the October 2026 release is issued.

What Heliyon’s Impact Factor was before the hold

Before the September 2024 hold, third-party JCR-tracking aggregator sites reported Heliyon’s 2024 JCR-data-year Impact Factor (the release that would ordinarily have appeared in June 2025) at approximately 4.3, alongside a separately calculated 2024 CiteScore (Elsevier/Scopus) of approximately 4.2. CASRAI could not independently confirm either figure against a primary Clarivate or Elsevier source at the time it was originally reported, and the figure is now further out of date given the intervening hold, audit, and pending October 2026 release. Treat any pre-hold Heliyon JIF number found online as historical background only, not as a current, citable figure.

Editorial model and scope

Heliyon was launched by Elsevier in 2015 and operates as part of the Cell Press family. It is a broad-scope, open-access megajournal: peer review is soundness-based (technical and ethical validity of the work) rather than novelty-based, and the journal explicitly welcomes negative or null results, incremental advances, and replication studies across essentially every scientific, medical, engineering, and social-science discipline, rather than specializing in one field. This editorial model is independent of, and unaffected by, the Web of Science indexing status described above.

JIF vs. CiteScore

These are two separate metrics from two separate organizations, and Heliyon’s interrupted JIF history makes the distinction more important, not less. The Impact Factor is calculated by Clarivate using a two-year citation window drawn from Web of Science-indexed data — the calculation Heliyon’s hold interrupted. CiteScore is calculated separately by Elsevier/Scopus using a four-year window and a broader document set, and is not affected by a journal’s Web of Science indexing status. A journal can have an active, current CiteScore while having no current JIF, which is Heliyon’s situation right now. Reporting one as though it were the other is a common sourcing error worth avoiding here specifically.

Why this matters for how the figure gets cited

DORA (the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment), the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself all caution against using a single journal-level metric as a proxy for the quality of one article or researcher. That caution applies with particular force to Heliyon right now: citing a pre-hold, aggregator-sourced “Heliyon impact factor” in a CV, grant application, or tenure file risks stating a figure that predates a documented indexing suspension, a large corrections-and-retractions episode, and a pending re-issued figure — none of which a stale number communicates. Anyone evaluating a Heliyon publication for its citation record should check the live Master Journal List / Cell Press status first, and wait for the October 2026 JCR release rather than reusing an older number.

Related terms

Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates with one journal’s current, interrupted status.
Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — the Clarivate publication a JIF is drawn from, including the October 2026 delayed release Heliyon is expecting.
Cureus’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — a related but more severe case: Cureus was placed on hold the same month as Heliyon but was fully delisted rather than relisted.
CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s separately computed, unaffected metric for the same journal.
PLOS ONE’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — another broad-scope, soundness-reviewed megajournal for comparison.
DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) — the reform commitment behind the over-reliance caution above.
How to Look Up a Journal’s Impact Factor — the practical lookup guide this term supports.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Heliyon have a current Impact Factor in 2026?

No, not as of this writing (last verified 2026-08-16). Clarivate placed Heliyon on hold in Web of Science indexing in September 2024 and lifted that hold on 2026-05-14. Because its citation data was suppressed for part of the assessment window, Heliyon did not receive a Journal Impact Factor in the standard June 2026 JCR release; a JIF is instead expected in the October 2026 JCR release.

Why was Heliyon placed on hold by Clarivate?

Clarivate has not published a detailed public rationale. Per Retraction Watch’s reporting, the hold coincided with an internal Elsevier audit of the journal that resulted in a large number of corrections and retractions — reported at roughly 1,197 corrections, including approximately 687 retractions — addressing article-quality and integrity concerns. Treat these counts as Retraction-Watch-sourced, not Clarivate-confirmed.

When will Heliyon get a new Impact Factor?

Clarivate is expected to issue a Journal Impact Factor for Heliyon in the October 2026 JCR release, a delayed, journal-specific figure outside the standard annual June cycle. Check Cell Press’s Heliyon page or Clarivate’s Master Journal List directly once that release date passes.

What was Heliyon’s Impact Factor before the hold?

Third-party aggregators reported an approximately 4.3 Impact Factor for the 2024 JCR data year (the cycle that would ordinarily have released in June 2025), alongside an approximately 4.2 CiteScore for the same year. CASRAI could not independently confirm either figure against a primary source, and both are now historical rather than current given the intervening hold.

Is Heliyon published by Cell Press?

Yes. Heliyon was launched by Elsevier in 2015 and operates as part of the Cell Press family, publishing original research across essentially every scientific, medical, engineering, and social-science discipline rather than specializing in one field.

Does Heliyon’s Impact Factor tell you anything about the quality of a specific article?

Not reliably, even once a new figure is issued. DORA, the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself all caution against using a single journal-level metric as a proxy for the quality of one article or researcher. This applies with particular force to Heliyon, since its own peer review is explicitly soundness-based rather than impact-based — it evaluates whether research was validly conducted and reported, not its anticipated novelty or citation potential.

Last verified 2026-08-16 against Retraction Watch’s reporting and direct (unsuccessful, 403) attempts to reach Elsevier’s own Heliyon pages. Clarivate republishes the Journal Citation Reports every June, with Heliyon’s figure specifically expected as a delayed October 2026 release — re-check this page’s status after that date.

Use in your systems

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