Scientific Reports 'Under Review': What Each Status Means and When to Expect a Decision

Scientific Reports operates the Editorial Board Member model with a large distributed academic editorial board. Once a manuscript passes the initial quality check by Nature Portfolio in-house staff, it is assigned to an Editorial Board member who is an active researcher in the field.

A handling Editorial Board Member at Scientific Reports typically reviews 30 to 60 manuscripts per year and spends 30 to 60 minutes on the initial read; Scientific Reports Editorial Board Members are working academics fitting Scientific Reports editorial work around their own research. The senior handling editor (Editorial Board Member) reads the entire paper and evaluates scientific validity, technical soundness, and Editorial Board subspecialty fit.

Scientific Reports editorial culture is decisive: the editorial bar is scientific validity, regardless of perceived importance. This is the most distinctive feature of Scientific Reports compared to selective Nature Portfolio journals (Nature, Nature family specialty titles): papers that pass the scientific-validity criterion are accepted regardless of broader impact assessment.

Before the paper reaches external reviewers, a Nature Portfolio in-house handling editor performs the initial quality check and an Editorial Board Member evaluates the manuscript for peer-review fit. About 30 to 40 percent of submissions are rejected at this stage.

A rejection most often means the editor concluded that the work has technical issues, lacks scientific validity, or would fit better at a sister Nature Portfolio open-access title (Communications Biology for broad biology, Communications Medicine for medicine, Communications Chemistry for chemistry, Communications Physics for physics, Communications Earth & Environment for earth sciences).

The Nature Portfolio in-house staff perform the initial quality check: manuscript with figures embedded, supplementary information separate, reporting checklists where applicable (ARRIVE for animal work, CONSORT for clinical trials, STROBE for observational studies), cover letter directed to the editor, conflict-of-interest declarations, ethics-statement documentation, IRB approvals, and data-availability statement.

The in-house handling editor reviews the initial quality check results and selects an appropriate Editorial Board Member from the large distributed academic Editorial Board based on subject area expertise.

In parallel with the in-house handling editor's primary read, ambiguous-fit papers are discussed across the Nature Portfolio in-house editorial team where peer handling editors weigh in on whether the paper would fit better at Scientific Reports or at sister Nature Portfolio Communications journals. This editorial consultation runs alongside the desk-screen and adds 2 to 5 days to the timeline that is invisible to the author in the portal.

Papers that pass initial quality check and in-house handling editor matching are assigned to an Editorial Board member who is an active researcher in the field. The Editorial Board Member identifies and invites 2 to 3 external reviewers with topic-matched expertise.

Scientific Reports Editorial Board Members typically invite 2 to 3 external reviewers, with reviewer recruitment typically taking 7 to 14 days. The recruitment window can take longer because reviewers willing to evaluate against the scientific-validity criterion (rather than novelty-based criteria) are scarcer than reviewers for selective Nature Portfolio journals.

Once reviewers agree to review, the typical Scientific Reports peer-review cycle lasts 2 to 5 weeks per reviewer, contributing to the 45-day first-decision target. Reviewers are asked to evaluate scientific validity, technical soundness, and reproducibility. Reviewer reports for Scientific Reports tend to be focused; 1500 to 3000 word reports are typical given the validity-based review model.

After reports return, the Editorial Board Member synthesizes them. The Editorial Board Member decides whether to accept the work as is, request minor or major revisions, or reject the paper.

• Rejection within 1 to 7 days: Administrative issue or initial quality check failure.

• Rejection within 7 to 14 days: Nature Portfolio handling editor or Editorial Board Member desk rejection per the 30 to 40 percent figure.

• Still Under Review after 2 weeks: Strong signal. Paper passed the initial quality check and Editorial Board Member screen.

• Still Under Review after 10 weeks: Reviewer-recruitment or reviewer-report delay. A polite inquiry via the Nature submission portal is appropriate.

• Status changes to "Decision Pending": Reports are in; expect a decision within 1 week.

This is the most common anxiety we hear from Scientific Reports authors during the active editorial window. The honest answer: no, 5 weeks at Under Review puts you right at Scientific Reports's 45-day first-decision target. Reports may already be in editorial synthesis with the Editorial Board Member preparing the recommendation. Most reviewer-driven delays come from reviewer-recruitment timing for the validity-based review model rather than slow reviews.

If the portal still says Under Review at the 8-week mark, the most likely explanation is that one of the assigned reviewers asked for an extension and the Editorial Board Member granted it. This is normal practice at Scientific Reports.

What you should NOT do during the 5-to-8-week window is email the editorial office. Scientific Reports Editorial Board Members are working academics managing 30+ active papers per year around their own research; an inquiry at 5 weeks adds friction without accelerating the timeline.

If your Scientific Reports paper is rejected after review, the natural cascade depends on what the reviewers and Editorial Board Member cited:

Communications Biology is the natural Nature Portfolio cascade for broad-biology papers. Nature Portfolio supports manuscript-transfer with reviewer reports preserved.

Communications Medicine is the Nature Portfolio cascade for medicine papers.

Communications Chemistry is the Nature Portfolio cascade for chemistry papers.

Communications Physics is the Nature Portfolio cascade for physics papers.

Communications Earth & Environment is the Nature Portfolio cascade for earth sciences papers.

PLOS ONE is the external PLOS open-access cascade for multidisciplinary papers. PLOS ONE uses Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager submission portal; editorial contact plosone@plos.org.

Heliyon is the external Elsevier multidisciplinary cascade for technically-sound papers. Heliyon uses Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager submission portal; editorial contact heliyon@elsevier.com.

Nature Portfolio asks reviewers at Scientific Reports to evaluate four things specifically. The table below maps each to actionable preparation.

Across Scientific Reports-targeted manuscripts, three named patterns generate the most consistent reviewer concerns and the most common reasons papers miss the editorial bar or fail the desk screen. Across 37 reviews in the Manusights pre-submission corpus for Scientific Reports and nearby multidisciplinary open-access journals, the repeat pattern is not usually a missing novelty claim; it is a missing validity proof.

Scientific Reports editors specifically look for technical soundness, reproducibility, ethics documentation, and scope fit before novelty language matters. Scientific Reports is not trying to judge whether the work is a Nature-level conceptual leap; it is trying to decide whether the study is technically sound, reproducible, ethically documented, and within scope.

That makes the failure modes unusually concrete: the Methods are not repeatable, the data package is incomplete, or the paper argues for importance while leaving the validity test under-specified.

Technical soundness gaps flagged at initial quality check. When technical soundness is thin, especially for analytical method validation, statistical methodology, image processing, or instrumentation calibration, Scientific Reports initial quality check return or Editorial Board Member desk rejection within 7 to 14 days is common. We see this most often when the manuscript has strong results but the Methods section does not let a reviewer distinguish a robust protocol from a lab-specific workflow.

The strongest manuscripts include calibration details, negative and positive controls, versioned analysis scripts, and enough protocol detail for replication.

Check whether your Scientific Reports methods are technically sound →

Data-availability gaps flagged at Editorial Board Member screen. When raw data is not deposited in public repositories, the Scientific Reports Editorial Board Member often pauses the process before meaningful review can begin. The weakest version is a generic "data available on request" statement attached to figures that depend on image files, sequencing data, code, crystallography, survey instruments, or model outputs. The strongest manuscripts deposit raw data alongside submission, name accession numbers where possible, and make the figure-to-data mapping obvious.

Check if your Scientific Reports data package is complete →

Nature Portfolio Communications cascade offers from Editorial Board Member. When the Editorial Board Member concludes the work is rigorous but Scientific Reports is not the best fit, transfer offers to Communications Biology, Communications Medicine, Communications Chemistry, Communications Physics, or Communications Earth & Environment are common.

In our Scientific Reports-targeted reviews, this happens when the paper is more selective or field-shaping than the authors realize, or when the paper's scope is narrower than Scientific Reports but fits a specialty Nature Portfolio outlet. The cover letter and abstract should make that route legible before the editor has to infer it.

Check your Scientific Reports fit before choosing the cascade route →

This guide tells you what Scientific Reports editors look for while the manuscript is being routed or reviewed. The review tells you whether your paper passes that check before the decision arrives. We have reviewed manuscripts targeting Scientific Reports and peer multidisciplinary open-access venues; the named patterns above are the same ones Editorial Board Members and outside reviewers flag during first review. 60-day money-back guarantee. We do not train AI on your manuscript and delete it within 24 hours.

This page was created from Nature Portfolio's public Scientific Reports editorial process documentation at Nature Portfolio journal page, Scientific Reports author instructions (initial quality check + Editorial Board Member model, 45-day first-decision target, 2 to 3 reviewers per submission, scientific-validity-regardless-of-importance criterion, Nature Portfolio single-blind peer review), and Manusights pre-submission review experience with Scientific Reports-targeted manuscripts.

Source limitation: Scientific Reports public materials explain the Editorial Board Member model, but they do not show reviewer-invitation timing, editor notes, or why one technically sound paper stalls while another moves quickly. Official guidance covers the visible workflow; the added Manusights layer comes from the 100 most recent status-anxiety manuscripts our team reviewed across Scientific Reports and adjacent multidisciplinary open-access venues, where the strongest predictor of author confusion was whether the Methods, data availability, and figure-to-data mapping made scientific validity easy to verify.

For the open-access multidisciplinary landscape beyond Scientific Reports, see PLOS ONE (PLOS multidisciplinary), International Journal of Molecular Sciences (MDPI molecular sciences), Heliyon (Elsevier multidisciplinary), and Nature Portfolio Communications journals (Communications Biology, Communications Medicine, Communications Chemistry, Communications Physics, Communications Earth & Environment). The choice across these titles depends on whether the central contribution is multidisciplinary scientific validity (Scientific Reports), scientific rigor (PLOS ONE), MDPI molecular sciences (IJMS), Elsevier multidisciplinary (Heliyon), or specialty Nature Portfolio open-access (Communications journals).

Reviewers at Scientific Reports typically draw from 2 to 3 subspecialty experts under an Editorial Board Member single-blind model. Editors screen and triage manuscripts before any reviewer sees them, and preparing a response template that addresses scientific-validity and technical-soundness perspectives accelerates revision rounds substantially.

For a pre-upload check of your manuscript against the Scientific Reports scientific-validity-plus-technical-soundness bar before submission, our Scientific Reports pre-submission diagnostic flags the technical and validity weaknesses most likely to surface in reviewer reports.