Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher checking Scientific Reports' current 2-year JIF (4.9, confirmed directly on nature.com/srep) before deciding where to submit a manuscript, understanding this figure sits alongside CiteScore and quartile ranking rather than replacing them.
- Is an instance
A librarian explaining to faculty that Scientific Reports, as a high-volume soundness-only mega-journal, averages its JIF across a far larger and more heterogeneous set of articles than a narrowly curated specialist journal.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Citing Scientific Reports' CiteScore (a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric, four-year window) as if it were the journal's Clarivate JIF.
- Not an instance
Describing a single highly cited Scientific Reports article as "having" the journal's JIF -- the metric is computed at the journal level only.
Editorial commentary
Scientific Reports’ 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). Like every JCR-indexed title, Scientific Reports receives its own separate JIF — it is not the same figure as its sister title Nature Communications or any other journal in the Nature Portfolio — and that figure changes with each annual JCR release.
What the number actually measures
The JIF is a ratio: citations received in a given year to citable items (articles and reviews) the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. Scientific Reports is an open-access, multidisciplinary journal published by Springer Nature (Nature Portfolio) since 2011. It is a “mega-journal” that evaluates submissions on technical and scientific soundness rather than perceived novelty or importance — similar in editorial model to PLOS ONE — and publishes a substantially larger volume of articles per year than most JCR-indexed titles, including other Nature Portfolio journals.
Current figure — confirmed directly against the publisher
Nature Portfolio’s own journal page (nature.com/srep) states: “Scientific Reports has a 2-year impact factor: 4.9 (2025), and is the 2nd most-cited journal in the world, with more than 1,061,414 citations in 2025,” sourced on-page to the “2025 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2026).” CASRAI confirmed this figure directly against the publisher’s page on 16 August 2026. This matches Clarivate’s current release cycle — the 2025 JCR data year, released June 2026 — so this is the current, publisher-confirmed number, up from approximately 3.9 reported for the prior (2024 data year) release. Note: an older, cached meta description on Nature’s own site elsewhere states “3.8 Impact Factor”; that appears to be a stale, non-visible tag rather than the number stated in the journal page’s own visible text, which is the figure to rely on.
Worked example
If Scientific Reports published 40,000 citable items across its two preceding data years combined, and those items collectively received roughly 196,000 citations in the JCR data year, the resulting JIF would be 196,000 / 40,000 = 4.9 — the same mechanical calculation Clarivate applies to every journal in JCR, from a single-issue society title to a high-volume multidisciplinary mega-journal like this one.
Why this number alone is a poor stand-in for quality
Citation-tracking organizations including DORA, the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself caution against over-relying on a single journal-level metric to judge an individual article or researcher. This caution applies with particular force to a soundness-only mega-journal: because acceptance is not based on a subjective importance threshold, the resulting JIF reflects an average across a much wider spread of citation outcomes than a narrowly curated journal would show.
Counter-example
Scientific Reports’ CiteScore (a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric using a four-year citation window and a broader document set) is not the same figure as its JIF, and reporting one as if it were the other is a common sourcing error. Similarly, an individual highly cited Scientific Reports article does not “have” the journal’s JIF — the metric is computed at the journal level, not the article level.
Related terms
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates with one journal’s current figure.
- Nature Communications’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — a second Nature Portfolio title’s JIF.
- CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s competing journal-level metric.
- DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment)
- DORA vs CoARA
Last verified: 16 August 2026. Clarivate refreshes Journal Citation Reports figures every June; treat any specific number on this page as time-stamped to the release named next to it, not a permanent property of the journal, and re-check the source named above after the next June release.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Scientific Reports’ current Journal Impact Factor?
Nature Portfolio’s own journal page (nature.com/srep) states a 2-year impact factor of 4.9 (2025 JCR data year, released 2026), confirmed directly by CASRAI on 16 August 2026 — this is the current, publisher-confirmed figure.
How is Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor calculated?
The JIF is a ratio: citations received in a given year to the citable items (articles and reviews) the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items.
Has Scientific Reports’ Impact Factor changed from the previous JCR release?
Yes. The publisher-confirmed figure is 4.9 for the 2025 JCR data year, up from approximately 3.9 reported for the 2024 data year release.
Is Scientific Reports’ Impact Factor the same as its CiteScore?
No. CiteScore is a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric using a four-year citation window and a broader document set, while the JIF is Clarivate’s two-year metric.
Does Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor reflect the quality of an individual article published there?
No. The JIF is computed at the journal level, not the article level, and DORA and the CoARA coalition caution against using it as a proxy for the quality of a specific paper or researcher.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/scientific-reports-impact-factor" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/scientific-reports-impact-factor",
"name": "Scientific Reports' Journal Impact Factor (JIF)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/scientific-reports-impact-factor",
"description": "Scientific Reports' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio Scientific Reports receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Nature Portfolio's own journal page (nature.com/srep) states a 2-year impact factor of 4.9 for the 2025 JCR data year (2025 Journal Citation Reports, Clarivate Analytics, released 2026), confirmed directly by CASRAI on 16 August 2026 -- up from approximately 3.9 for the prior (2024 data year) release. Scientific Reports is a large, open-access, multidisciplinary Nature Portfolio journal that accepts submissions on technical soundness rather than perceived novelty, so per DORA and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in it.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/publishing#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/scientific-reports-impact-factor",
"sameAs": [],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-08-17T01:18:55",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
