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Journal Guides7 min readUpdated Oct 11, 2026

Nature Communications SJR and Scopus Metrics: What the Numbers Actually Tell Authors

Nature Communications has a strong multidisciplinary Scopus profile, but the real submission question is whether your paper is broad and complete enough for a high-end cross-field journal.

By Manusights Editorial Team•
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Journal context

Nature Communications at a glance

Key metrics to place the journal before deciding whether it fits your manuscript and career goals.

Full journal profile
Time to decision9 daysFirst decisionOpen access APC£5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150Gold OA option

What makes this journal worth targeting

  • Nature Communications's scope and readership determine whether the journal is a useful target.
  • Scope specificity matters more than headline metrics for most manuscript decisions.
  • Manusights has not verified a current acceptance rate for Nature Communications. Check the publisher source for current data; this does not mean the publisher reports none.

When to look elsewhere

  • When your paper sits at the edge of the journal's stated scope, borderline fit rarely improves after submission.
  • If timeline matters: Nature Communications takes ~9 days. A faster-turnaround journal may suit a grant or job deadline better.
  • If OA is required: gold OA costs £5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150. Check institutional agreements before submitting.

Quick answer: Nature Communications still has a strong broad-scope Scopus profile, but the journal is no longer at its late-2010s peak.

Nature Communications' own journal metrics page (read October 2026) prints SJR 4.904 and SNIP 3.422 for 2025. Scopus-linked sources placed it at SJR 4.761, impact score 14.63, rank 313, and h-index 577 in 2024. That confirms real cross-field authority. The harder question is whether your paper is broad and complete enough for a high-end open-access specialist venue rather than just a strong subfield paper.

Direct answer

If you want the metric-only read, Nature Communications remains a serious high-end journal.

Metric
Current value
What it tells you
SJR
4.904 (2025, per the journal's metrics page; 4.761 in 2024)
prestige-weighted influence is strong for a broad OA journal
Impact Score
14.63
citation density remains high across a very large volume base
Global rank
313
the journal remains well above the broad middle tier
h-index
577
the archive is enormous and heavily reused
Best quartile
Q1
the title remains top quartile across indexed areas
Coverage history
2010-2025
this is an established broad-scope venue

That is the right baseline. The journal is not a weak overflow product. It has its own durable citation footprint.

Overview

The useful summary is that Nature Communications works when the paper is bigger than one specialist lane but not so field-wide that it belongs in a general-science flagship. The metrics and the editorial posture both point to that middle-high band.

What changed in 2024

The 2024 picture is a mild softening year on prestige weighting but an improving year on impact score.

  • SJR moved down from 4.887 in 2023 to 4.761 in 2024
  • impact score moved up from 13.79 to 14.63
  • global rank moved from 297 to 313

That means the journal is still heavily used, but its prestige-weighted position has not recovered to the late-2010s level. For authors, that usually means the journal remains strong yet still screens hard on breadth and completeness.

Ten-year SJR and Scopus trend

Year
SJR
Impact Score
Global Rank
2024
4.761
14.63
313
2023
4.887
13.79
297
2022
5.116
15.41
258
2021
4.846
15.50
280
2020
5.559
13.18
242
2019
5.569
11.68
238
2018
5.992
11.73
226
2017
6.582
12.72
184
2016
6.414
12.61
188
2015
6.287
12.23
191
2014
6.410
12.17
189

The trend shows a journal that remains strong but is not operating from the same prestige-weighted height it had in 2014-2018. SJR fell from 6.582 in 2017 to 4.761 in 2024, while impact score stayed comparatively resilient. That usually means the journal is still widely cited but carries less concentration of prestige than it once did.

What the trend means in practice

For authors, the trend usually means:

  • Nature Communications is still highly visible
  • open-access scale has not destroyed the journal's authority
  • the current prestige signal is strong but more ordinary than the peak-era shorthand some authors still remember

That is important because many submissions are made using an outdated mental model of the journal. The current numbers support a serious target, not a magical fallback.

How Nature Communications compares with nearby broad-scope journals

Journal
2024 SJR
What the metric profile usually signals
Nature Communications
4.761
broad high-end specialist OA venue
Science Advances
4.324
strong multidisciplinary OA venue with similar broad-readership logic
eLife
3.379
biologically visible open venue with very different reviewed-preprint model
Nature Methods
15.624 (2025, per Nature Methods)
specialist methods flagship, not a direct breadth comparison

This comparison helps because authors often confuse different kinds of prestige. Nature Communications is stronger than many broad OA journals, but it is not doing the same job as Nature Methods, and it is not asking authors to accept the same publishing model tradeoffs as eLife.

What editors are really screening for

The scope and positioning language around Nature Communications stays consistent:

  • the journal covers a wide range of disciplines
  • papers should represent significant advances for specialists
  • open-access visibility is part of the product, not a compromise

In practice, editors are usually screening for:

  • significance beyond one narrow subfield
  • a manuscript complete enough to survive a demanding broad-specialist readership
  • enough evidence that the claim feels finished, not exploratory
  • a paper that is more than a strong local result with a premium brand wrapper

That is why the journal can still be hard despite publishing at scale.

What we see in Nature Communications Metric Questions

For Nature Communications metric questions, three mistakes come up repeatedly.

The prestige-fallback mistake. Authors sometimes use the journal as a fallback from Nature without checking whether the paper really clears the broad-specialist bar here.

The subfield-only mistake. Another common miss is a manuscript that is genuinely good but still too bounded by one specialty audience. The metrics do not make that paper broad.

The completeness mistake. We also see papers that are important but not finished enough. Because the journal has broad reach, incompleteness becomes more visible, not less.

That is what the current profile is really telling you. The journal remains strong enough that it does not need to rescue near-fit papers.

What these metrics mean for authors

For authors, the current numbers say:

  • the journal still delivers major visibility
  • the archive is deep enough that published papers remain widely discoverable
  • breadth and completeness still matter more than simple subfield importance
  • open-access scale has not removed the need for sharp editorial positioning

The h-index of 577 reinforces that discoverability point. If the paper belongs here, the reach is real. If it does not, the journal's scale does not make the fit error less expensive.

Submit If / Think Twice If

Submit if:

  • the manuscript matters across a specialist boundary rather than one niche alone
  • the evidence package is complete and publication-ready
  • open-access reach is a real benefit for the audience you want
  • the paper is stronger than a normal subfield journal submission but not trying to be a general-science flagship

Think twice if:

  • the paper is mainly a strong subfield result with limited cross-boundary consequence
  • the manuscript still feels exploratory or incomplete
  • the choice is driven mostly by brand proximity to Nature rather than by editorial fit
  • another high-end specialty journal would give a cleaner audience match

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What should drive the submission decision instead

The better question is whether the manuscript is truly a Nature Communications paper.

That is why the better next reads are:

If the paper is broad, polished, and important across a specialist boundary, the metrics support the choice. If it is mostly a strong subfield paper, the same metrics are just explaining why the screen will stay unforgiving. A Nature Communications submission framing check is a direct way to pressure-test that before submission.

Practical verdict

Nature Communications still has a genuinely strong Scopus-style profile. That matters because it confirms the journal remains a serious high-end broad-scope destination even after its peak-era prestige weighting softened.

For authors, the useful takeaway is still fit, not brand comfort. If the manuscript is not broad or complete enough, the metrics do not help.

Frequently asked questions

Nature's official metrics page reports a 2025 SJR of 4.904 for Nature Communications; Scopus-linked sources list 4.761 for 2024.

Nature's official metrics page reports a 2025 SNIP of 3.422 for Nature Communications; Scopus-linked sources list 3.150 for 2024.

No. The real question is whether the manuscript is broad and complete enough for a high-end multidisciplinary specialist audience.

They confirm that Nature Communications has a real high-end citation profile of its own rather than functioning only as a Nature-branded fallback.

References

Sources

  1. 1. Nature Communications metrics page, Resurchify.
  2. 2. Nature Communications journal metrics, Nature Portfolio.
  3. 3. Nature Communications journal page, Nature Portfolio.
  4. 4. Nature Communications author instructions, Nature Portfolio.

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