Nature Communications 'Under Consideration': What It Means and How Long It Takes

Nature Communications uses a few status labels, but "Under Consideration" is the broadest. It can mean any of these:

1. An editor is reading your paper for the first time (desk review)
2. Your paper has been assigned to a handling editor for deeper evaluation
3. Reviewers have been invited and the journal is waiting for reports
4. Reviewer reports are in and the editor is deliberating

You can't tell which of these phases you're in just from the status. The only reliable signal is time: if you've been Under Consideration for more than 14 days without a rejection, you've almost certainly passed desk review.

Here's the typical Nature Communications timeline from submission to first decision:

The 11.4-day median for first editorial decision is one of the fastest among high-impact journals. But that number includes desk rejections, which are quick. If you're sent to review, the full process takes longer.

Your paper lands on an editor's desk. They're checking:

Scope fit: Does this belong in a broad-scope journal, or is it too specialized?

Significance: Is this a genuine advance, or incremental?

Technical quality: Do the methods and data look sound on first read?

Presentation: Is the paper clearly written with logical structure?

About 50% to 60% of papers are rejected at this stage. The rejection email is usually brief and generic. Don't take it personally. With over 60,000 submissions per year, editors can't write detailed feedback for desk rejections.

If you're still Under Consideration after 14 days, that's a strong signal you've cleared the desk.

This is often the slowest part. The editor needs to find 2-3 qualified reviewers who:

• have relevant expertise
• don't have conflicts of interest
• actually agree to review (reviewer acceptance rates have dropped across all journals)

Sometimes the first round of invitations gets declined and the editor has to try again. This can add 1-2 weeks. There's nothing you can do about it, and the journal won't tell you it's happening.

Once reviewers accept, they typically have 2-3 weeks to submit reports. Some are fast, some drag. The editor can't force the timeline. If one reviewer is late, the editor usually sends reminders but won't make a decision with only one report unless they have to.

The handling editor reads the reviewer reports, weighs them against each other (reviewers often disagree), and makes a recommendation. At Nature Communications, a senior editor typically signs off on the final decision.

Possible outcomes:

• Accept (rare on first round, roughly 5% of reviewed papers)
• Minor revision (good news, usually means acceptance after fixes)
• Major revision (you'll need to address all reviewer concerns, sometimes with new experiments)
• Reject after review (reviewers found fundamental problems)

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting Nature Communications, three patterns generate the most consistent desk rejections. We see these across hundreds of manuscripts we've reviewed through our NComms desk-rejection pattern check, and they consistently predict whether a paper will clear the desk or stall.

The specialist paper without a clear advance narrative. We find this pattern in roughly 40% of Nature Communications desk rejections we review. The science is rigorous, but the advance over existing literature isn't obvious to a non-specialist editor. Nature Communications editors are full-time professionals who read across all of science. They aren't domain experts in your specific subfield. What actually happens during triage: the editor reads the abstract and asks "what changed because of this work?" If the answer requires specialist knowledge to appreciate, the paper is already in trouble. In practice, we observe that papers which state the advance in the first two sentences of the abstract have a dramatically higher desk clearance rate than papers that build up to the advance.

The methodologically sound paper that doesn't justify the journal's APC. At roughly 5,390 EUR, Nature Communications has one of the highest APCs in science. Editors consistently screen for whether the advance justifies publication in a high-cost broad-scope journal versus a lower-cost specialist venue. We notice that papers which could appear in a field-specific journal without any reframing are the ones most likely to be desk-rejected, even when the methodology is strong. The hidden screen editors apply: "would the authors' institution pay 5,390 EUR for this paper to appear here rather than in a field journal?"

The paper with a fragmented results section. This sinks manuscripts that pass the scope and significance screens. We observe that Nature Communications editors reject papers where the results feel like a collection of loosely related experiments rather than a single coherent story. Per SciRev community data, reviewers consistently cite "lack of a clear narrative thread" as a top criticism. In our experience, roughly 35% of papers we review have a results section that reads like three separate papers compressed into one, and this pattern predicts editorial concern at the desk.

Keep the follow-up brief. One sentence: "I'm writing to inquire about the status of manuscript NCOMMS-XX-XXXXX, submitted on [date]. I'd appreciate any update on the expected timeline."

About half of all Nature Communications submissions get desk rejected. It's not a reflection of your science. It usually means one of:

• the work is solid but too specialized for Nature Communications' broad readership
• the advance isn't big enough for a journal at this IF level
• the field is saturated with similar findings

Your next steps: check the rejection against common desk rejection reasons, consider what to do after desk rejection, and look at alternatives like PNAS (IF 9.1, ~15% acceptance) or Science Advances (IF 12.5, ~10% acceptance).