Nature Communications Submission Process: Complete Guide for 2026

Decision cue: If you need a yes/no submission call today, compare your draft with 3 recent accepted papers from this journal and only submit when scope, methods depth, and claim strength line up.

Related: How to choose a journal • How to avoid desk rejection • Pre-submission checklist

Nature Communications receives more than 50,000 submissions per year. It publishes around 6,000 to 7,000 of them. If you're submitting, you're entering a process that filters aggressively at every stage. Here's exactly what that process looks like, what the editors are checking, and how to give yourself the best chance at each step.

What You Need Before You Submit

Don't start formatting your manuscript for submission until you have all of these ready. Missing documents trigger automatic desk rejection, and Nature Communications won't ask you to supply them.

Required for all submissions:

• Cover letter
• Data availability statement
• Author contributions statement (CRediT format is accepted)
• Competing interests declaration for all authors
• Statistics checklist (completed and attached as supplementary)

Required for life sciences papers:

• Life Sciences Reporting Summary (download from the Nature Communications website)

The Life Sciences Reporting Summary is the one that catches people off guard. It's a detailed checklist covering sample sizes, blinding, randomization, replication, and statistical methods. Download it early and fill it in as you write, not at the last minute.

For the data availability statement, you need to say where your data is, not just that it's available. NCBI accession numbers, repository DOIs, and GitHub links all work. "Data available upon request" is no longer acceptable at Nature Communications.

Stage 1: Initial Submission (Day 0)

Submit through the manuscript tracking system. You'll need to:

• Select the article type (Article, Review, or Protocol)
• Upload the manuscript as a single PDF for review (figures embedded is fine at this stage)
• Add all supplementary files
• Enter author information including ORCIDs
• Indicate if you've opted into transparent peer review
• List any suggested or excluded reviewers

Articles don't have a strict word limit, though most published NC papers fall in the 3,000 to 8,000 word range for the main text. Reviews and Protocols have separate guidelines. Check the author instructions for your specific article type.

Stage 2: Desk Assessment (Days 1-9)

This is where most papers die. The editorial team reads your paper and decides whether it's worth sending to external reviewers. About 50-60% of submissions don't make it past this stage.

What editors are evaluating:

• Is this a significant advance, or a solid-but-incremental contribution?
• Would scientists outside this specific subfield care about it?
• Is the conceptual novelty clear from the first reading?
• Are there obvious methodological problems?
• Does the paper fit Nature Communications' scope?

The desk review takes about 9 days on average. If your paper is rejected at this stage, you get a brief editorial note, usually without detailed feedback.

The scope question matters more than most authors expect. Nature Communications covers all natural sciences, but editors still assess whether a paper has broad appeal. A technically excellent paper in a narrow niche is a desk rejection risk, not because the science is weak, but because it's not what this journal is for.

Stage 3: The Cover Letter

Your cover letter is what editors read before they read your paper. Get it wrong and the paper may not get a fair reading.

What a strong Nature Communications cover letter does:

It opens with one or two sentences that explain what was previously unknown. Then it says what you found. Then it explains why this matters to scientists beyond your subfield.

That last part is critical. NC editors are evaluating broad interest. If your cover letter is essentially your abstract with "Dear Editors" at the top, you've missed the point. You need to make an explicit case for why researchers in adjacent fields should care.

Keep it under one page. Three to four short paragraphs is ideal. Don't summarize your methods. Don't list your figures. Don't explain what each section of the paper contains. Editors know how papers are structured.

End with a declaration that the work hasn't been published or submitted elsewhere. State any relevant conflicts of interest or related submitted/published manuscripts.

Stage 4: Peer Review (Weeks 2-10)

If you pass the desk review, your paper goes to 2-3 external reviewers. These are researchers active in your field. Nature Communications uses single-blind review by default (reviewers know who you are, you don't know who they are).

Finding willing reviewers is the slow part. Editors typically invite 6-8 people to get 2-3 acceptances. This takes 1-3 weeks before reviews even start. Once reviewers accept, they usually return comments within 3-5 weeks.

The reviewers evaluate:

• Rigor of the experimental design
• Whether the conclusions are supported by the data
• Statistical appropriateness
• Novelty and significance of the findings
• Quality and clarity of figures

First decision comes 6-8 weeks after peer review begins. The possible outcomes are: accept (rare on first submission), minor revision, major revision, or reject.

If you opted into transparent peer review, the reviewer reports and your response letters will be published with the final paper. You can opt out at any point before acceptance.

What Triggers Desk Rejection

The most common reasons papers don't make it past editorial assessment:

1. Incremental advance. You've extended an existing finding without a new conceptual contribution. Confirmatory work, however rigorous, tends to get desk-rejected at NC.

2. Specialist-only significance. The advance is real but only matters to people working in your specific niche. NC needs papers that interest cell biologists and physicists and ecologists, not just one corner of one field.

3. Missing documents. No Life Sciences Reporting Summary, incomplete statistics checklist, or vague data availability statement. These are automatic.

4. Cover letter that buries the lead. If an editor has to excavate your cover letter to find out why this work matters, many won't bother.

5. Obvious methods problems. Underpowered studies, missing controls, inappropriate statistics. Editors can spot these quickly.

See how to avoid desk rejection for a detailed pre-submission checklist.

Stage 5: Revision Strategy

If you get a major revision, take it seriously. The revision is your best shot at acceptance, and editors pay close attention to how thoroughly you address each point.

On the revision letter:

Respond to every reviewer comment individually. Even if you disagree, explain why in detail. "We disagree with reviewer 2's concern about sample size because..." is acceptable. No response is not.

Structure your response letter clearly. Use the reviewer's exact quote, then your response, then where in the manuscript you made the change (page and line number).

If a requested experiment would take six months and doesn't change the conclusion, say so and offer an alternative. Editors understand resource constraints, but you have to make the argument explicitly.

On timeline: Minor revisions at Nature Communications get about 14-21 days. Major revisions typically get 60-90 days, with extensions available if you communicate with the editor. You can request extensions. Don't go silent.

Stage 6: After Acceptance

Acceptance triggers a flurry of administrative steps:

1. APC invoice arrives within 48 hours. The current charge is EUR 5,390 (approximately €5,390 USD or GBP 4,690). Check whether your institution has a Springer Nature agreement that covers this. Many do. See the Nature Communications APC guide for the full breakdown of waivers and institutional deals.
2. Proof review happens within 1-2 weeks. You get a PDF to check for typographical errors and figure quality. This isn't the time to rewrite; it's proofreading only.
3. Online publication follows proof approval, usually within 1-2 weeks.

Total time from submission to publication: 4-7 months for most papers, though unusually complex revisions can extend this.

Realistic Expectations

Nature Communications is competitive. A 20% overall acceptance rate means most papers that are submitted don't get published there, and most of the rejection happens before a single external reviewer sees your work. That's not a reason to avoid submitting, but it's a reason to be honest with yourself about whether your paper meets the bar before you invest time in the submission process.

The papers that succeed at NC have two things in common: rigorous methodology and a clear story about why the findings matter beyond the submitting lab's immediate area. If your paper has both, it's worth submitting. If it only has one, consider whether a revision or a different target journal would serve you better.

For a realistic assessment of where your paper stands before you submit, see Nature Communications review time for timeline details, and consider a pre-submission review to catch the gaps that editors flag.

Sources and Further Reading

• Nature Communications author guidelines: nature.com/ncomms/submission-guidelines
• Nature Portfolio editorial criteria: nature.com/nature/editorial-criteria-and-processes
• Nature Communications journal overview
• Nature Communications review time
• Nature Communications APC guide

The Bottom Line

The Nature Communications process gives you one clean shot at the desk review. If your paper doesn't clear it, you resubmit elsewhere and start the clock again. Getting the framing, scope claim, and cover letter right before you submit isn't optional , it's the difference between 9 days and 9 weeks.

See also

• Nature Communications Review Time
• Nature Communications Impact Factor 2026
• Nature Communications vs PNAS
• How to Submit to Cell Journal

Related Resources

• Nature family journals compared
• Nature Communications vs PNAS
• Review timelines compared
• Acceptance rates across biomedical journals