Direct comparison
Impact Factor vs. SJR Compared
JIF vs SJR: Clarivate’s flat 2-year citation count vs SCImago’s free, PageRank-style 3-year weighted prestige score from Scopus data.
Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
Ask CASRAI · included with Regulatory Radar
Ask about Impact Factor vs. SJR Compared
Ask CASRAI answers research-administration questions and cites the passages behind every claim — and says so when the corpus does not cover something, instead of guessing. It comes with a Regulatory Radar subscription at $29 a month, alongside the daily digest of regulatory changes and the dashboard of what changed.
150 questions a day, on this site, over the API, or inside your own tools through the CASRAI MCP server.
Everything CASRAI publishes — this page, the dictionary, the guides and the news — stays free to read, with no account and no card.
How do Impact Factor (JIF), SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) compare side by side?
The table below compares Impact Factor (JIF), SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) across 10 procurement-relevant dimensions, from what it measures through category rankings.
Side-by-side comparison
| Dimension | Impact Factor (JIF) | SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Average citations per citable item over a fixed 2-year window | Weighted prestige score per document, where citations from higher-prestige journals count more |
| Produced by | Clarivate | SCImago Research Group (CSIC + University of Granada) — independent, not Elsevier |
| Published in | Journal Citation Reports (JCR), annually | scimagojr.com, annually |
| Underlying database | Web of Science Core Collection | Scopus (computed under license) |
| Citation window | 2 years (citations in Y to items published in Y-1, Y-2) | 3 years (citations in Y to documents published in Y-1, Y-2, Y-3) |
| Weighting method | None — every citation counts equally | Iterative, PageRank-style algorithm — citations from more prestigious journals carry more weight |
| Self-citation handling | Self-cite % reported alongside JIF; excessive self-citation can trigger JCR suppression | Journal self-citations capped at 33% of total references in the calculation |
| Access / cost | Requires Web of Science / JCR institutional subscription for most figures | Free, no subscription required |
| Eligibility | Web of Science Core Collection journals meeting quality criteria (SCIE/SSCI/AHCI/ESCI since the 2023 JCR release) | Any journal or serial indexed in Scopus |
| Category rankings | Quartile (Q1–Q4) within a JCR subject category; arts & humanities ranked by JCI since 2024 | Quartile within a Scopus subject category, freely browsable |
Common questions
Common questions about Impact Factor (JIF) vs SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
Is a high SJR the same as a high Impact Factor?
+
Not necessarily. Because SJR weighs citations by the citing journal’s own prestige and covers a 3-year window against JIF’s flat 2-year count, and the two draw from different databases (Scopus vs. Web of Science), a journal can rank differently on each metric.
Which is more accurate, Impact Factor or SJR?
+
Neither is objectively more accurate — they answer different questions. JIF is a simple average of citations per article; SJR incorporates the prestige of the citing journal. Both are journal-level metrics, and neither should be used alone to judge an individual researcher’s work, per DORA and CoARA.
Do I need a subscription to see SJR?
+
No. SJR is published free at scimagojr.com. JIF generally requires institutional access to Web of Science, InCites, or Journal Citation Reports to view most journals’ current figures.
Can a journal have an SJR but no Impact Factor, or vice versa?
+
Yes. A journal needs to be indexed in Scopus to have an SJR, and separately indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection to have a JIF. The two databases have different, though overlapping, coverage, so a journal indexed in only one will carry only that system’s metric.
