Scientific Reports Review Time

Total time from submission to published article: 6-12 months for most papers. The median is around 4-5 months to acceptance for papers that eventually get accepted.

An academic editor assigned to your subject area does an initial desk review. Scientific Reports editors are working researchers who evaluate against several criteria before sending to external review.

What they're checking: Scientific validity (study design, data-conclusion alignment, methods soundness at first glance). Scope (empirical research from natural sciences only, no review articles, opinion pieces, case reports without novel findings, or purely theoretical papers). Reporting compliance (CONSORT for clinical trials, STROBE for observational studies, ARRIVE for animal studies). Data availability statement (must include a repository link or clear explanation of why data can't be shared, "data available on request" triggers rejection).

This is the main reason Scientific Reports takes so long. The journal handles submissions across dozens of scientific disciplines, finding two or three qualified reviewers for a paper on deep-sea microbiology or photovoltaic nanomaterials takes time. Editors typically invite 6-10 potential reviewers to secure 2-3 who agree. For specialized papers, expect 4-6 weeks. Mainstream topics (oncology, ecology, neuroscience) tend to move faster.

One thing that helps: suggesting 4-5 specific reviewers in your cover letter. Reviewers you suggest still go through conflict-of-interest checks, but they're much more likely to accept because someone in the field thinks their input is relevant.

Once reviewers accept, they typically have 2-4 weeks to submit reports. In practice, many take longer. Scientific Reports uses a structured review form evaluating scientific soundness, methods detail for replication, whether conclusions are supported by data, and data quality. Reviewers are NOT asked to evaluate novelty or significance, don't bury yourself defending significance claims that editors don't require.

After reviews come in, the academic editor makes a recommendation:

• Accept as is: Rare on first submission (under 5%)
• Minor revision: About 15-20% of papers that reach review
• Major revision: The most common outcome (~40%), meaning you're very likely to eventually be accepted
• Reject: About 35-40% of papers that reach review

Combined with the desk rejection rate, total rejection across all stages runs roughly 55-60%. The 57% acceptance figure reflects papers that survive initial screening, not all submissions.

Both journals are open-access multidisciplinary journals with similar editorial philosophies. PLOS ONE typically returns a first decision in 6-8 weeks. Scientific Reports averages 16-20 weeks. The difference comes down to volume and infrastructure.

PLOS ONE has spent 20 years optimizing its editorial workflow and processes everything faster, from screening to reviewer recruitment to decision timelines. Scientific Reports is part of the Springer Nature portfolio, which means its systems and editors are shared across multiple journals. That creates both cross-journal consistency and occasional bottlenecks.

For researchers choosing between the two: if timeline matters, PLOS ONE is reliably faster. If your institution values the Springer Nature portfolio association or you want the cascade option from higher-tier Nature journals, Scientific Reports is worth the extra wait.

The 2024 JIF of 3.9 is down from the 2021 peak of 5.0, which was elevated by pandemic-related citation spikes on COVID-19 and adjacent papers published in 2020-2021. Review times have increased from approximately 2-3 months in 2016-2018 to the current 4-month average as annual submission volume grew from roughly 20,000 papers to over 50,000.

The JIF decline from 5.0 to 3.9 between 2021 and 2023 reflects the same pattern seen across many journals that published high volumes of COVID-19 papers. CiteScore (7.1 in 2024) remains higher than the JIF suggests because it uses a 4-year citation window that still captures those papers.

If a Nature portfolio journal (Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Medicine, and others) rejects your paper, the editor can offer to transfer it directly to Scientific Reports. Reviewer comments transfer with the paper.

This is a real time-saver. Instead of starting fresh with a new submission and new reviewer search, you enter the process with existing reviews already attached. The Scientific Reports editor reviews the paper in that context, which often means a faster path to a decision.

With a 57% acceptance rate, Scientific Reports is more accessible than most journals. But that doesn't mean getting past the desk is guaranteed. Common desk rejection reasons:

Missing data availability statement. This is probably the most common fixable rejection. The statement needs to specify exactly where data are deposited and how to access them. If you have proprietary or sensitive data, you need to explain the restriction explicitly. "Data available on request" is not acceptable.

Wrong paper type. Scientific Reports doesn't publish reviews, letters, or purely theoretical work. If you submit a narrative review, it gets desk rejected regardless of quality.

Sample size problems. Underpowered studies without power calculations get flagged. You don't need the largest possible sample, but you need to justify the size you used.

Ethics documentation gaps. Human subjects research needs IRB or equivalent documentation. Animal research needs the equivalent institutional approval. Missing this is an automatic desk rejection.

Replication of established findings without clear added value. Scientific Reports doesn't require novelty, but it does require that the study adds something, new data, a new population, a new context. Pure replications rarely pass editorial screening.

Scientific Reports publishes across all disciplines, and review speed varies:

Not all delays are equal. Here are the biggest time sinks, ranked by how much they actually cost, and what you can do about each one.

The single biggest lever you have is the revision stage. Papers that need major revisions add 2-4 months to an already long timeline. Submitting a more complete manuscript, with thorough supplementary data, clear statistics, and pre-emptive answers to likely reviewer concerns, is worth more than any post-submission optimization.

A few practical timing notes: if your paper status hasn't moved from "Under Editorial Review" after 6 weeks, it's appropriate to send a polite inquiry to the editorial office. Don't assume silence means rejection, long silences are usually just slow reviewer recruitment. And don't submit elsewhere while waiting. Scientific Reports requires exclusive submission, and submitting simultaneously to another journal violates their policies. If you want the shortest possible path from submission to acceptance, a Scientific Reports readiness check eliminates the most common reasons for major revision requests. One revision round saved equals 2-4 months saved.

In our review work with manuscripts targeting Scientific Reports, the most consistent delay we observe is the revision stage: papers that need major revisions add 2-4 months to an already long timeline, and authors frequently submit papers that trigger predictable revision requests they could have addressed before submission. The formatting compliance issues (missing data availability statements, incomplete ethics documentation) are the most common desk rejection triggers we see, and they are entirely avoidable with a pre-submission check.

Last verified: April 2026. Average time to first decision (90-120 days), acceptance rate (57% post-screening), desk-rejection rate (~40%), and field-specific timelines checked against Scientific Reports' published turnaround data, Clarivate JCR 2024, and SciRev community data (182 reports).

Submit if:

• Your paper is empirically sound and you value the 57% post-screening acceptance rate, Scientific Reports evaluates technical soundness, not breakthrough significance
• You want the Nature Portfolio cascade option, papers rejected from Nature or Nature Communications can transfer with existing reviewer comments, saving months
• Your study has a verifiable data availability statement with repository links and complete reporting-checklist compliance (CONSORT, STROBE, ARRIVE as applicable)
• You can tolerate the 90-120 day timeline to first decision in exchange for broad Springer Nature indexing and visibility

Think twice if:

• Speed is critical, PLOS ONE typically returns a first decision in 6-8 weeks versus Scientific Reports' 4-month average
• Your paper type does not fit, Scientific Reports does not publish review articles, opinion pieces, case reports without novel findings, or purely theoretical work
• Your data availability statement is not rock-solid, "data available on request" triggers desk rejection
• You need a stronger prestige signal, Scientific Reports' IF of 3.9 may not satisfy institutional promotion criteria