About the numbers on this page: The primary metric and current comparison values reflect the August 2026 OpenAlex snapshot. The Journal Metrics Score is a 2-year citation average computed from OpenAlex (CC0) data. For live verification, use our homepage search tool.
2026 Journal Metrics Score
18.0
Updated August 2026 · 2-year citation average from OpenAlex data
Nature is one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. Verify the exact title and ISSN 0028-0836 before using this metric in a submission shortlist.
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Nature Family Journal Metrics
Popular Nature Journals · Current release
About Nature Journal
Journal Overview
- Publisher: Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature)
- Founded: 1869
- Frequency: Weekly
- ISSN: 0028-0836
- Subject Areas: Multidisciplinary Sciences
- Language: English
Why Nature Has High Impact
- • Publishes groundbreaking research across all scientific disciplines
- • Rigorous peer review process with high rejection rate
- • Global readership and high citation rates
- • Historical significance and established reputation
- • Attracts Nobel Prize-winning research
- • Broad interdisciplinary appeal
An Editorial Perspective on Nature
The citation average by itself tells you very little about whether your paper belongs in Nature. When I was moving between clinical work and AI research, I spent a lot of time reading Nature cover-to-cover to understand what actually makes the cut. A few honest observations that I wish I'd had earlier:
The number is driven by a small number of very heavily cited papers.
Like most highly cited venues, Nature's citation average is skewed by a handful of papers that accumulate thousands of citations. Median citations per Nature paper are far lower than the score suggests. Don't assume your paper will receive score-equivalent attention simply because it is published there.
The editorial filter is stricter than the review filter.
Most papers sent to Nature are rejected without external review. The professional editors make that call based on whether the claim is broad enough and the evidence surprising enough. If your paper is primarily a careful extension of prior work, it is unlikely to pass this gate no matter how rigorous the methodology.
Revisions are substantial, not cosmetic.
If your paper is sent out for review and survives the first round, expect to run additional experiments — often months of work — in response to reviewer requests. Budget time and resources for this before submitting.
A Nature-family specialty journal is often the right answer.
Nature Medicine, Nature Methods, Nature Biotechnology, and similar specialty titles have their own very strong citation metrics and are a better fit for most high-quality specialist work. The review process is typically more conventional, and your paper will be read by people who actually work in your subfield.
When a Nature Submission Makes Sense
A Nature submission is worth considering when your manuscript satisfies all of the following:
- The central finding would be interesting to a reader outside your specialty.
- There is a specific, crisp claim — not a catalog of observations or a comprehensive survey.
- The evidence is overdetermined. Multiple independent lines of evidence should point to the same conclusion.
- There is a plausible "so what" that extends beyond the immediate field — therapeutic implication, new methodology applicable elsewhere, or a challenge to a prevailing model.
- You are prepared for a four-to-nine month review cycle, potentially with substantial additional experiments, and for a reasonable probability of rejection at any stage.
If two or more of these are weak, a specialty Nature-family journal or a strong discipline-specific venue is usually the better bet.
A note on year-over-year values
Two-year citation averages for journals like Nature historically fluctuate within a narrow band. The current headline number (18.0) reflects the August 2026 OpenAlex snapshot. We deliberately do not publish a multi-year trend line, because small year-over-year swings in a citation average rarely indicate anything meaningful about journal quality — they are mostly artifacts of which works happen to fall inside the two-year window. Each snapshot is recomputed in full from OpenAlex (CC0) data.
Nature Journal Metrics Score FAQ
What is Nature's current Journal Metrics Score?
Nature's 2026 Journal Metrics Score is 18.0, updated August 2026 from OpenAlex citation data.
How is the 2026 Journal Metrics Score calculated?
The Journal Metrics Score is the two-year mean citedness of a journal, computed from OpenAlex (CC0) data: citations received in the most recent complete year to works published in the two prior years, divided by the number of those works. Quartiles rank journals within each OpenAlex subfield by score.
What is the journal quartile for Nature?
Nature is ranked Q1 within its OpenAlex subfield.
Should I submit to Nature based only on the Journal Metrics Score?
No. Nature's score is only one signal. Scope, novelty, editorial fit, methods, article type, timeline, and comparable journals matter more for an actual submission decision.
Search More Journal Metrics Scores
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Written by Dr. Meng Zhao
Physician-Scientist · Founder, LabCat AI
MD · Former Neurosurgeon · Medical AI Researcher
Dr. Meng Zhao is a former neurosurgeon turned medical-AI researcher. After years in the operating room, he moved into applied AI for clinical workflows and now leads LabCat AI, a medical-AI company working on decision support and research tooling for clinicians. He built Journal Metrics as a free resource for researchers who need reliable journal metrics without paid database subscriptions.