Open Research Europe has no official Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JIF), and by explicit policy it never will. The European Commission’s open-access publishing platform for Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 beneficiaries deliberately rejects journal-level metrics in favour of article-level indicators, aligning itself with the DORA Declaration and the Leiden Manifesto.
Open Research Europe (ORE) is a no-fee, open-access publishing platform launched in 2021 by the European Commission, built on F1000-derived publishing infrastructure, that carries Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020-funded research through an author-driven, post-publication open peer-review process. That structural choice — publish first, review openly afterwards — is precisely what makes the “impact factor” question harder to answer than a simple yes or no, and it is why ORE’s Scopus listing and its absence from Web of Science are so often confused with each other.
- Does Open Research Europe have a Journal Impact Factor?
- What does Scopus indexing mean for ORE articles?
- Is Open Research Europe indexed in Web of Science?
- Why does post-publication peer review complicate the comparison?
- How ORE’s citation data compares, year by year
- Common questions about ORE’s impact factor and indexing
- Implications for authors, institutions and evaluators
- Outlook: what happens next
Does Open Research Europe Have a Journal Impact Factor?
No. Open Research Europe has never held a Clarivate Journal Impact Factor and has stated it will not pursue one. The COST-ORE webinar Question and Answer document is unambiguous on this point: “Open Research Europe does not have an Impact Factor (IF) and will not have one in the future.” This is a design decision, not a shortfall — ORE is structured around article-level metrics rather than a single journal-wide citation average.
Some third-party indexing directories nonetheless display a figure they label an “impact score” or “Impact IF” for ORE, often citing a value around 1.4–1.9. These figures are not the Clarivate JIF. They are derived from Scopus citation data by commercial indexing-metrics sites, and they should not be quoted on a CV or grant application as a Journal Impact Factor, because no such official figure exists for ORE.
What Does Scopus Indexing Mean for ORE Articles?
Scopus indexing means an ORE article has cleared enough of a quality bar — completed open peer review, stable versioning, sustained publication activity — to be catalogued in Elsevier’s abstract-and-citation database. Per LIBER Europe’s ORE FAQ, articles are included in Google Scholar immediately on publication, but are only picked up by Scopus and Inspec once they pass peer review.
Scopus coverage delivers three concrete benefits for authors:
- Discoverability — articles surface in the citation searches institutions and publishers run by default.
- Evaluator recognition — many national assessment exercises and promotion committees treat Scopus coverage as a baseline quality signal.
- Citation tracking — Scopus data feeds the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), the metric ORE actually reports in place of a JIF.
According to SCImago Journal & Country Rank (data as of March 2026), ORE sits in the Q2 quartile of the Multidisciplinary category for 2023, 2024 and 2025, with an SJR of 0.391 in 2025 — up from 0.280 in 2023.
Is Open Research Europe Indexed in Web of Science?
As of mid-2026, Open Research Europe is not indexed in Clarivate’s Web of Science (WoS) core collection, though WoS inclusion is a stated ambition for the platform. This matters directly for the impact-factor question, because Web of Science coverage is the prerequisite Clarivate requires before it will calculate a Journal Impact Factor for any title.
In practice, this means ORE’s absence from WoS and its absence of a JIF are the same fact stated two ways: no WoS record, no JIF eligibility. Researchers who need WoS-indexed output for a specific funder or national assessment requirement should verify ORE’s current WoS status directly before submitting, since indexing applications are described by ORE itself as ongoing.
Why Does Post-Publication Peer Review Complicate the Comparison?
ORE publishes an article before formal peer review begins, then runs an open, invited, named-reviewer process afterwards — authors must nominate at least five potential reviewers and keep sourcing names until two reports are published. Each revision produces its own version with its own DOI, so a single ORE article can exist as multiple citable, indexable records.
LIBER Europe’s FAQ flags a genuine downstream problem this creates for librarians and indexers: databases that ingest every version risk flagging near-duplicate records for removal, while databases that keep only the latest version may lose citation history from earlier versions. This versioning mechanic — not just the absence of a JIF — is a structural reason why ORE resists being scored on the same axis as a conventional subscription or hybrid journal.
How ORE’s Citation Data Compares, Year by Year
Article-level growth is the metric ORE wants evaluated, and the underlying Scopus-sourced data shows a platform still scaling rather than a mature, steady-state journal.
| Year | Documents published | SJR | Total cites | Cites per document |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 117 | — | 87 | 1.554 |
| 2023 | 151 | 0.280 | 247 | 1.428 |
| 2024 | 196 | 0.376 | 532 | 1.642 |
| 2025 | 221 | 0.391 | 899 | 1.938 |
Source: SCImago Journal & Country Rank, metrics based on Scopus data as of March 2026.
One further data point exposes a common misreading. SCImago’s Journal Value tool models an “estimated APC” for ORE of roughly $2,742 for 2025, calculated purely from its SJR and output volume. That figure is a statistical estimate, not a real charge: under LIBER Europe’s FAQ, ORE authors pay nothing, because the European Commission covers all publication costs directly for eligible Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 beneficiaries. Treating the modelled APC as an actual fee is a documented source of confusion worth correcting explicitly.
Common Questions About ORE’s Impact Factor and Indexing
Does Open Research Europe Have an Official Impact Factor?
No. Open Research Europe has confirmed it does not have, and will not seek, a Clarivate Journal Impact Factor. It reports article-level indicators — citations, views, downloads and reviewer reports — instead, consistent with the DORA Declaration and the Leiden Manifesto on responsible research assessment.
What Is Open Research Europe?
Open Research Europe is the European Commission’s open-access publishing platform for research funded under Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and Euratom. It offers rapid, no-fee publication across 14 article types and six discipline areas, with an open, post-publication peer-review process.
Is It Good to Publish in Open Access Platforms Like ORE?
For eligible Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 beneficiaries, ORE satisfies open-access and data-sharing mandates at no author cost while granting Scopus and Google Scholar discoverability. Researchers needing Web of Science-indexed output for a specific funder requirement should confirm current coverage before submitting.
Implications for Authors, Institutions and Evaluators
Research offices and evaluators should treat ORE’s metrics profile as a feature of the platform’s design, not a data gap to be filled in with an unofficial number. Institutional guidance to authors should explicitly state that quoting a scraped “impact score” for ORE on a grant application or CV is inaccurate, since no Clarivate JIF exists.
Research administration teams responsible for tracking funder compliance and output reporting are better served citing ORE’s Scopus indexing status, SJR quartile and article-level citation counts — the same figures ORE itself publishes on every article’s dedicated metrics page.
Outlook: What Happens Next
The European Commission confirmed in a 26 March 2026 announcement that it is entering “a new era for Open Research Europe,” committing to continued funding for the platform and exploring its expansion to serve funders beyond the EU research programmes, potentially under a broader diamond open-access model with no author-facing fees. Whether that expansion brings a change to ORE’s metrics philosophy remains an open question, but nothing in the Commission’s public statements to date signals a reversal of the no-JIF policy. Institutions tracking ORE for compliance or assessment purposes should monitor the platform’s own indexing page directly, since Web of Science status and any future database applications are updated there as they are achieved.
