Scientific Reports Impact Factor 2026: Is It a Good Journal and Is It Predatory?

The first question most researchers ask about Scientific Reports is whether it's predatory. It's a fair question: the journal has a 57% acceptance rate, an APC model, and carries the Springer Nature name in a way that can confuse people who associate "Nature" with Nature the flagship journal.

The short answer: no, it's not predatory. But the honest answer is more complicated than that, and the details matter for deciding whether to submit.

What Scientific Reports Is

Scientific Reports launched in 2011 as Springer Nature's open-access megajournal: a direct competitor to PLOS ONE. Like PLOS ONE, it reviews manuscripts for scientific soundness only, without requiring novelty or significance beyond the specific finding. Like PLOS ONE, it publishes across all of science. Like PLOS ONE, it charges an APC to authors instead of subscriptions to readers.

It's not the same as Nature, Nature Communications, or any other Nature Portfolio journal. The "Nature" in the name refers to the publisher. The editorial standards, prestige, and selection criteria are completely different.

Scientific Reports Impact Factor: Year by Year

The CiteScore (Scopus) is approximately 6.5: higher than the JCR IF because the 4-year citation window picks up more accumulated citations on Scientific Reports' high volume.

The IF decline from 4.99 (2021) to 3.9 (2023/2024) mirrors the same pattern seen at PLOS ONE and other high-volume journals: as article count increases, the denominator grows faster than citations to older articles, mechanically compressing the IF. Scientific Reports now publishes over 25,000 articles per year, one of the highest volumes in science.

Is Scientific Reports Predatory?

No. But it helps to be specific about why not: because the concerns researchers have are real, even if the "predatory" label is wrong.

Why it's not predatory:

• Published by Springer Nature, a $1.6B academic publishing company with editorial infrastructure, legal compliance teams, and reputational skin in the game
• Indexed in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus: predatory journals don't make it into these databases
• Peer review is conducted by real researchers: the editorial process involves actual domain experts
• Appeals and corrections processes exist and are used
• Over 2 million articles published; a significant portion of the biomedical and physical science literature

The legitimate criticisms:

The APC model creates a structural tension. The journal's revenue comes from APCs. When reviewers reject papers, the journal earns nothing from those authors. When reviewers accept, it does. This incentive structure doesn't affect reviewers directly (they're unpaid volunteers), but it shapes editorial culture over time toward accommodation.

A 57% acceptance rate across all fields means the average quality bar is lower than a specialty journal selecting 15-20% of submissions. Some Scientific Reports papers are excellent. Some are weak. Reviewers and editors who volunteer there know the journal's model and apply their judgment accordingly: but that judgment is more variable than at a competitive journal.

The "Nature" branding also creates problems. Some researchers list it as a "Nature journal" on CVs and grant applications. Some hiring committees, especially those unfamiliar with how academic publishing works, misread it as a high-prestige journal. This isn't Scientific Reports' fault: but it contributes to the journal's reputation being inflated relative to what it actually selects for.

The honest summary: Scientific Reports is a legitimate, properly peer-reviewed, widely indexed journal with real quality issues related to high volume. It's not predatory. It's also not equivalent to high-impact specialty journals, regardless of what the "Nature" in the name suggests.

Scientific Reports vs Similar Journals

A few things stand out:

• PLOS ONE is more selective at a lower price. Scientific Reports accepts 57% vs PLOS ONE's 31% and charges $559 more per publication. If the only consideration is getting published, PLOS ONE is more cost-effective for the same tier of work.
• Scientific Reports is much slower than PLOS ONE. 120 days vs 40 days. If you're on a grant deadline, career timeline, or need to move fast, this is a real difference.
• Frontiers journals are comparable in acceptance rate but more varied in quality and have more transparency complaints.
• eLife is more selective despite lower APC. If your work is strong, eLife carries significantly more prestige.

What the 57% Acceptance Rate Actually Means in Practice

57% sounds like a near-guarantee. It isn't.

First, desk rejection happens before the 57% kicks in. Papers with obvious ethical problems, scope issues, or basic methodological failures get rejected before peer review. The 57% is the peer-review-to-acceptance rate, not submission-to-acceptance.

Second, Scientific Reports reviews for soundness, not novelty. Reviewers are looking for:

• Valid methodology: appropriate controls, adequate sample sizes, correct statistical tests
• Accurate conclusions: do the results actually support the claims?
• Ethics compliance: IRB approval, IACUC where required, data availability statement
• Reproducibility: methods described in enough detail that others could repeat the work

If your methodology has real problems: underpowered samples, missing controls, overreached conclusions: Scientific Reports will reject you. The bar is lower than a specialty journal, but it exists.

The papers that get rejected from Scientific Reports after peer review are usually rejected for methodology problems that were fixable but weren't fixed. The same papers that fail at Nature for lacking novelty often fail at Scientific Reports for lacking rigor.

Review Timeline: Why It's So Slow

~120 days to first decision is genuinely slow for a journal that reviews only for soundness. PLOS ONE does the same job in ~40 days.

The delay is largely structural. Scientific Reports uses academic editors (researchers volunteering time) rather than professional editors. Reviewer recruitment is harder at a high-volume journal because the same pool of researchers reviews for dozens of journals. Scientific Reports processes tens of thousands of submissions per year with the same type of unpaid volunteer infrastructure that other journals use for a fraction of that volume.

If you submit to Scientific Reports, build the timeline into your planning. 120 days to first decision, then potentially 4-8 weeks for revision review. Accept-to-publish in another 4-6 weeks. Full publication from submission: 6-9 months in a typical case.

When to Submit to Scientific Reports

Submit if:

• Your work is methodologically solid but not a landmark finding
• Open access is required and your budget is limited (though PLOS ONE is cheaper)
• The Springer Nature / Nature Portfolio brand carries weight in your specific institution or country
• You need to publish a replication, methods paper, or dataset that other journals won't prioritize
• Timeline flexibility: you can wait 5-6 months for a first decision round

Consider alternatives if:

• Speed matters: PLOS ONE is 3x faster for the same tier of work
• Budget matters: PLOS ONE is $559 cheaper per publication
• Your field has a specialty journal with comparable prestige where your work will reach a more targeted audience
• You need a high IF for career or grant purposes: 3.9 is real but won't move most hiring committees
• Your institution has concerns about APC-model journals in promotion decisions

The IF in Context

For most career decisions, the 3.9 IF matters less than researchers think.

Hiring committees at research-intensive universities look at the work itself and where it sits in the field, not a journal's exact IF. A Scientific Reports paper that's highly cited in your field is worth more than a journal-page paper at a 6-IF journal that nobody reads.

Where the IF does matter: institutions and countries that use explicit IF thresholds for promotion decisions. In some European and Asian academic systems, journal IF is scored directly. If you're in one of those systems, check the specific thresholds before choosing Scientific Reports.

The bigger career risk isn't the 3.9 IF. It's submitting work to a soundness-only journal that should have been submitted to a competitive specialty journal. If your paper could realistically get into a journal with an 8-12 IF in your field, submitting to Scientific Reports trades 5+ IF points for convenience: and reviewers and collaborators will notice.

For the full Scientific Reports submission guide: what reviewers evaluate, how to write the methods section for a soundness-focused journal, and data availability requirements: see the Scientific Reports journal page and the Scientific Reports review guide.

For a full take on whether Scientific Reports is worth submitting to, see Is Scientific Reports a good journal?.

Sources and further reading

Impact factor data sourced from Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (released June 2025). Submission guidelines at the Scientific Reports author instructions.

See our full Scientific Reports journal guide for scope, acceptance rates, and what the editorial team prioritizes. For manuscript strategy before you submit, see our avoid desk rejection service.

2026 Freshness Check: Why Scientific Reports Still Matters

Scientific Reports is still one of the most practical journals for technically sound studies that don't need a novelty-first editorial filter. The IF (3.9) is stable, and the review pipeline remains predictable compared with many higher-IF journals.

In 2026, the main strategic use case is speed plus visibility. If your study is methodologically strong and you need public availability quickly, Scientific Reports can be a better decision than spending 4-6 extra months chasing a higher-tier journal with repeated desk rejections.

This is especially true for thesis-dependent timelines, grant milestones, and supporting papers that complete a larger body of work.

The Bottom Line

Scientific Reports' IF of 3.9 isn't a mark against it for authors who need rapid, open-access publication without staking out a high-IF claim. The 57% acceptance rate means the bar is real but not prohibitive. If you're deciding between Scientific Reports and a step-up target, our diagnostic can help you assess which one your manuscript is actually ready for.

See also

• Scientific Reports review time
• Scientific Reports submission guide
• Scientific Reports vs PLOS ONE

Related Resources

• Acceptance rates for 50+ journals - see how Scientific Reports' 57% compares
• Review timelines compared
• Open access multidisciplinary journals - compare all your options
• Scientific Reports vs PLOS ONE