Nature Communications Review Time

Nature Communications uses professional editors (not active researchers) to handle most manuscript decisions. When you submit, a primary editor does the initial desk assessment. If the paper looks suitable, they may consult with a second editor or advisory board member before deciding whether to send out for review.

The SciRev column is based on 194 author-reported reviews aggregated at scirev.org/journal/nature-communications/. The range is wide because reviewer availability varies considerably by subfield.

Nature Communications' own guide to authors adds two points that matter for planning. First, the journal says it does not consider pre-submission enquiries and prefers a full manuscript instead. Second, editorial decisions are made by full-time PhD-level professional editors rather than an external editorial board, which helps explain why desk triage is fairly consistent even at very high submission volume.

In our review work with researchers targeting Nature Communications, the timelines that surprise authors most are at the extremes, not the middle. The journal's official guidelines suggest a process that sounds orderly. SciRev data from 2023-2026 shows what actually happens:

Source: SciRev individual review reports, accepted papers only.

The fastest 2025 acceptance cleared in 12 weeks total, the best-case end of the range. The 44.6-week outlier that same year illustrates how far a single difficult revision cycle can stretch the process. Both are real outcomes from the same journal in the same year. The honest planning assumption is 4-5 months for a straightforward accepted paper, with 6-9 months for papers requiring a major revision round.

One pattern worth noting: the SciRev overall handling rating for Nature Communications sits at 3.0/5.0, below what you would expect from a journal at this IF. Authors consistently rate the editorial responsiveness as adequate but not exceptional. The review difficulty score of 3.8/5.0 is high, meaning reviewers ask for substantial work. Both scores have been consistent across the 2022-2026 data window with no clear directional trend.

Nature Communications sits below Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, and the specialist Nature journals in prestige. It's explicitly designed for high-quality science that lacks the narrow "exceptional advance" threshold those journals require. Think of it as the home for research that is methodologically rigorous, clearly significant within its field, and well-executed, but does not claim to reshape an entire discipline.

That positioning matters for timing. Nature Communications editors are experienced enough to distinguish "good paper, wrong journal" from "good paper, right journal." If your work would obviously fare better at PNAS, eLife, or a specialist journal, they will desk reject it with a brief note. That is not a judgment on your science: it is scope curation.

No competitor page puts these journals side by side. Here is how Nature Communications compares on speed, based on SciRev author data and published journal metrics.

Nature Communications hits a sweet spot: high enough IF to matter for careers, fast enough that you are not waiting a year. Scientific Reports is faster but carries less weight on a CV. Communications Biology is worth considering if your work is solid biology but does not have the cross-disciplinary reach Nature Communications demands.

Reviewer availability. Nature Communications has a large but finite pool of willing reviewers. Highly specialized papers in emerging fields sometimes take 6+ weeks just to secure two external reviewers. SciRev data confirms this: when papers sit in "Reviewers Invited" status for more than 3-4 weeks, reviewer recruitment is almost always the reason.

Incomplete submission. Missing files, wrong file formats, or incomplete author details trigger administrative holds before the paper even reaches an editor. Submit everything in the correct format the first time.

Broad authorship disputes. Papers with many co-authors across institutions sometimes encounter contribution statement issues. CRediT taxonomy contribution statements are required: sort these out before submission, not after.

Requests for additional data. Editors at Nature Communications sometimes ask for additional experiments or analyses before sending to review, especially if the study has obvious gaps. This pre-review revision round adds 4-8 weeks and is more common than authors expect.

Advance beyond existing literature. What specifically does this paper add that is not already in the literature? "Confirms previous findings in a different context" almost always gets desk rejected. "Resolves a long-standing controversy" or "demonstrates a previously unknown mechanism" almost always goes to review.

Interdisciplinary or broad appeal. Nature Communications specifically values work that crosses disciplinary lines. Editors specifically screen whether the paper matters beyond one narrow specialist lane, so a paper that matters only to one subfield is a harder sell than one that connects, say, structural biology to drug development.

Technical execution. Are the key experiments appropriate and well-controlled? Is the sample size defensible? Do the main figures tell a coherent story? Editors are experienced scientists: they spot methodological shortcuts.

Writing and presentation quality. If the writing makes it hard to assess the science, editors flag it for English editing before formal review. Get a native speaker to review your manuscript before submitting.

External peer review typically involves 2-3 reviewers, with a SciRev average of 2.7 reports per first round. On contested papers where reviewers split, editors occasionally recruit a fourth reviewer as a tie-breaker. Reviews are substantive, often 1-3 pages per reviewer.

Nature Communications has used transparent peer review since 2016: accepted papers have peer review reports published alongside them by default, though authors can opt out. Reviewers are invited to sign their reports; the majority decline and remain anonymous.

The revision cycle is where most time gets lost. First revisions typically require significant new experiments or analyses, not just clarifications. Budget 2-3 months for a major revision response. The bar for a second revision is lower: editors usually make an accept or reject decision after one round.

DOAJ currently lists the Nature Communications APC at up to EUR 6,150 (approximately USD 7,350 or GBP 5,490), up from the EUR 5,390 figure widely cited in 2024 documentation. If your institution has a Springer Nature read-and-publish agreement, the APC is covered entirely. Check the Springer Nature OA agreement finder before assuming you will pay.

Scope creep. Framing a solid specialist paper as a field-changing advance. Editors read the advance framing in your cover letter against what the data actually show. If the gap is large, desk rejection comes fast.

Missing mechanistic insight. Papers that describe phenomena without explaining why they happen are a consistent weakness. Nature Communications values mechanistic work. Descriptive papers need an unusually strong significance argument to compensate.

Incomplete controls. Missing positive or negative controls in key experiments. In complex biological systems especially, reviewers will ask for them if they are not there.

Over-claiming in the discussion. Conclusions that extrapolate far beyond the data in the paper. Stay close to what you have demonstrated.

In our review of Nature Communications submissions, the papers that miss usually do not fail because the science is weak in the abstract. They fail because the manuscript asks the journal to supply the breadth and positioning that the data package has not yet earned on its own.

Seasonal patterns in review speed are real and underappreciated. Based on SciRev author-reported data, submission timing can shift your first decision by 2-4 weeks.

Submit in April-May or September-October. Avoid late December through mid-January. Conference seasons (June for biology, August for chemistry and physics) also reduce reviewer availability in those fields specifically.