Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
The Journal of Cell Science About page lists a 2025 Impact Factor of 3.9 and a five-year Impact Factor of 4.0 (read 8 November 2026).
- Is an instance
Quoting the figure as "JCS, Impact Factor 3.9 (2025), journal-reported" names the metric, the year and the source.
Editorial commentary
Quick answer: The Journal of Cell Science (JCS), published by The Company of Biologists, lists a 2025 Impact Factor of 3.9 and a five-year Impact Factor of 4.0 on its own About page (journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/about, read 8 November 2026). The same page lists a Scopus CiteScore of 5.9. Cite the value together with its data year.
The Journal Impact Factor is a journal-level average, not a property of any single paper. This entry gives the figures the journal reports, the arithmetic behind them and the limits of what they can tell you. For the same treatment of other titles see Cell Death and Disease and Scientific Reports.
What is the Journal of Cell Science impact factor?
It is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) assigned to the Journal of Cell Science (online ISSN 1477-9137, print ISSN 0021-9533) in the Clarivate Journal Citation Reports. The journal’s About page presents it as the “2025 Impact Factor: 3.9”. The page does not name the data source for each metric, so treat the figure as journal-reported and confirm it in JCR if you need an authoritative citation.
Metrics the journal reports
| Metric | Value | Label on the journal page |
|---|---|---|
| Impact Factor | 3.9 | 2025 |
| Five-year Impact Factor | 4.0 | listed with the 2025 figure |
| Scopus CiteScore | 5.9 | no year stated |
Source for every row: the journal’s About page, read 8 November 2026. Values change each year, so check the page for the current release before quoting.
How is the impact factor calculated?
The standard two-year Journal Impact Factor is the number of citations received in the JCR year to items the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of citable items (articles and reviews) published in those two years. The five-year version uses a five-year publication window, which suits fields where citations accrue slowly. CiteScore is a different, Scopus-based metric with its own window and document-type rules, so 3.9 and 5.9 are not two readings of the same quantity and should not be compared as if they were.
Where is the journal indexed?
The About page states that the journal is abstracted and/or indexed by, amongst others, BIOBASE, CAB Abstracts, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Current Contents, EMBASE, Clarivate Web of Science, Medline and Scopus. The list is the journal’s own and is not exhaustive. CASRAI gives no quality verdict on any journal; it reports what the journal and the indexers state.
Using the figure responsibly
Clarivate describes the JIF as “a single journal-level measurement that should not be considered in isolation” (Journal Citation Reports page, read 8 November 2026). In practice that means:
- Name the year and the metric (two-year or five-year) every time you quote a value.
- Compare journals only within the same subject category and year, since citation rates differ between fields.
- Do not use the journal average to judge an individual article or author; the SCImago Journal Rank and other indicators answer different questions and are no substitute for reading the work.
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA, sfdora.org) makes the same point for funders, institutions and publishers: journal-level metrics should not stand in for the assessment of individual research outputs.
Frequently asked questions
Is 3.9 a good impact factor for a cell biology journal?
There is no universal threshold. Meaning comes only from comparison with other journals in the same category and year, which requires the JCR category ranking rather than the bare number.
Is the five-year figure higher than the two-year figure?
For the 2025 release the journal lists 4.0 against 3.9. The direction of that gap depends on the journal’s citation pattern and can differ in other years.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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