Rejected from Nature? The 7 Best Journals to Submit Next

Before choosing your next journal, you need to diagnose the rejection. Nature handles roughly 10,000 submissions per year and publishes fewer than 800 original research articles. That's an acceptance rate hovering around 7-8%. But the real bottleneck is the desk: Nature's editors desk-reject approximately 60% of submissions within the first two weeks, often within days.

The desk rejection at Nature isn't a peer review failure. It's a scope judgment. Nature's full-time professional editors (not working academics) are reading dozens of abstracts daily and asking one question: does this finding change how scientists across multiple fields think about something?

If the answer is "maybe, but only within cardiology" or "yes, but only if you're studying zebrafish development," that's usually a desk rejection. The work can be excellent and still not meet Nature's cross-disciplinary impact threshold.

The three rejection patterns

Pattern 1: Fast desk rejection (1-5 days). The editor decided your paper is strong but doesn't meet Nature's scope. This is the most common outcome. Your paper is probably fine. It just needs a different home.

Pattern 2: Slow desk rejection (2-4 weeks). The editor consulted internally or considered sending it out but ultimately decided against it. This suggests your paper was borderline for Nature. It likely has strong potential at a high-tier specialty journal.

Pattern 3: Post-review rejection. You got reviewer reports but Nature still said no. This is actually useful. You now have expert feedback, and many journals accept transferred manuscripts with existing reviews. Read those reports carefully before submitting elsewhere.

1. Science

If Nature rejected you at the desk for scope reasons, Science is the obvious parallel submission. Both journals want the same thing: a finding that changes how scientists think. But Science and Nature have different editorial cultures. Science tends to favor papers that present a clean, surprising result with a clear narrative arc. Nature is sometimes more tolerant of complex, multi-panel stories with extensive supplementary data.

Best for: Papers desk-rejected from Nature that tell a clean mechanistic story with broad appeal.

Watch out for: Science's desk rejection rate is equally brutal. If Nature said your paper lacks broad impact, Science will probably agree.

2. Cell

Cell is the strongest alternative for life science and biomedical manuscripts. Where Nature wants cross-disciplinary impact, Cell wants mechanistic depth. A Cell paper doesn't need to interest physicists, but it does need to show the complete molecular pathway, not just that A affects B.

Cell's editors expect more experimental completeness than Nature. If your Nature submission had reviewer concerns about missing controls or incomplete mechanism, address those before submitting to Cell.

Best for: Life science papers with deep mechanistic data that were rejected from Nature for being "too specialized" rather than "not strong enough."

Watch out for: Cell revision requests are notoriously demanding, often requiring 3-6 months of additional experiments.

3. Nature Communications

This is the most natural cascade for Nature rejections, and Nature's editors sometimes suggest the transfer directly. Nature Communications publishes technically sound papers that represent advances in their field, even if they don't have the cross-disciplinary appeal Nature demands.

The acceptance rate is roughly 25%, which is dramatically more accessible than Nature itself. The APC ($6,790) is substantial, but many institutional agreements cover it through Read and Publish deals with Springer Nature.

Best for: Papers that Nature editors acknowledged were solid but "better suited to a more specialized venue." The transfer pathway preserves your existing referee reports.

Watch out for: Nature Communications is still selective. Don't treat it as a fallback. Treat it as a different fit.

4. PNAS

PNAS occupies a unique position in the journal hierarchy. It's broad-scope like Nature and Science, but with a higher acceptance rate (~15%) and a more tolerant attitude toward papers that advance a specific field without necessarily reshaping all of science.

PNAS has two submission tracks. The direct submission track works like any other journal. The contributed track allows NAS members to shepherd papers through review, though this pathway has become more rigorous in recent years.

Best for: Strong papers that advance their field significantly but don't have the "wow factor" Nature demands. PNAS values methodological rigor and completeness over narrative surprise.

Watch out for: PNAS review times can be inconsistent. Some papers sail through in 4 weeks; others take 3 months depending on the handling editor.

5. Science Advances

Science Advances is the open-access sibling of Science and shares editorial infrastructure. If Science rejected your paper, it sometimes offers to transfer it to Science Advances directly. Even without a transfer, Science Advances accepts papers that push boundaries within their field, which is a lower bar than Science's "reshape the field" requirement.

The journal uses academic editors rather than full-time professional editors, so the desk stage can be slower (3-6 weeks) and less predictable than Nature's rapid triage.

Best for: Interdisciplinary or methods-heavy papers that Science found interesting but not impactful enough for the flagship.

Watch out for: The $5,000 APC is significant. Check whether your funder or institution has a waiver agreement.

6. Nature Medicine

For clinical, translational, or disease-focused papers, Nature Medicine is often a better fit than Nature itself. Nature Medicine wants papers that change clinical thinking, not necessarily all of science. If Nature rejected your paper because "the impact is primarily clinical," Nature Medicine is where it belongs.

Nature Medicine's IF (~82) is actually higher than Nature's in some recent years, so this isn't a step down. It's a scope correction.

Best for: Papers with strong clinical or translational implications that Nature considered too disease-specific.

Watch out for: Nature Medicine is just as selective as Nature within its clinical scope. Don't expect an easy acceptance.

7. Nature Genetics

If your paper's primary contribution is a genetic discovery, mechanism, or large-scale genomic analysis, Nature Genetics is the right specialty home. Nature Genetics publishes work that defines the function of genes and genetic variants, maps disease associations, and reveals genetic architecture.

Best for: Genetics and genomics papers that Nature found too specialized for its general audience.

Watch out for: Nature Genetics expects comprehensive genetic characterization. A single GWAS hit without functional follow-up won't make it.

Don't just pick one journal and hope. Think about this as a decision tree:

If Nature desk-rejected you within a week: Your paper's quality isn't the issue. The scope is. Go to Science (if you believe the work is broadly transformative) or Nature Communications (if the scope is narrower than Nature requires). Consider a top field-specific journal if your contribution is primarily within one discipline.

If Nature rejected after review: You have referee reports. Read them. If the reviewers were positive but the editor still said no, Nature Communications or Science Advances will likely value those reports. If reviewers raised concerns, fix them before submitting anywhere.

If Nature suggested a transfer: Take it seriously. The transfer pathway at Nature Portfolio preserves your referee reports and gives you a head start at the receiving journal. Nature Communications, Nature Medicine, and Nature Genetics all accept transfers.

This depends entirely on the rejection type.

After a desk rejection: Usually, don't revise the science. The paper was rejected for scope, not quality. You might adjust the framing or introduction to better match your next journal's audience, but don't add experiments or change your conclusions.

After peer review: Always revise. You now have expert feedback. Ignoring reviewer concerns and submitting the same version elsewhere is a waste. Address what you can, and note in your new cover letter what you've changed.

The cover letter matters. When resubmitting after a Nature rejection, don't mention Nature by name in your cover letter unless you're transferring through the publisher's system. Instead, focus on why your paper fits the new journal. Editors don't want to feel like they're your second choice, even though everyone understands how the cascade works.

When submitting to your next journal, your cover letter should do three things:

1. Explain why the paper fits this specific journal's scope and readership.
2. Summarize the main finding in 2-3 sentences that speak to this journal's priorities.
3. If you have reviewer reports from Nature (post-review rejection), mention that the paper has been peer-reviewed and that you've addressed the feedback. Some journals will request the reports.

Don't write a generic letter. An editor who sees "we believe our manuscript would be of interest to your readership" without specifics will assume you're carpet-bombing journals.

Run your revised manuscript through a free Manusights scan to check it against journal-specific editorial standards. It catches formatting issues, structural gaps, and scope mismatches before an editor does.