Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher checking Clarivate's live Web of Science Master Journal List directly for Cureus's current indexing status, rather than citing a remembered, aggregator-sourced, or undated publisher-marketing impact-factor figure, before referencing the journal in a CV or grant narrative.
- Is an instance
An author comparing Cureus's post-publication SIQ (Scholarly Impact Quotient) rating for their own article against a separately published article's Clarivate JIF, correctly treating the two as different, non-interchangeable metrics rather than versions of the same number.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Citing a 'current Cureus impact factor' of 1.2 or 1.3 pulled from an aggregator site, or from cureus.com's own undated marketing copy, as though it reflects an active, up-to-date Clarivate figure -- Cureus was removed from the Web of Science Master Journal List in October 2025 and does not currently receive a JIF.
- Not an instance
Treating Cureus's SIQ score as equivalent to a Journal Impact Factor -- SIQ is a Cureus-specific, reader-driven post-publication rating tool built into the journal's own platform, not a Clarivate JCR metric, and the two are not comparable or interchangeable.
Editorial commentary
Searches for Cureus’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) are common, but the honest current answer differs from most other named-journal impact-factor lookups: Cureus does not have one right now. Like the general Journal Impact Factor entry this page illustrates, the JIF is a citation ratio Clarivate calculates annually from a journal’s Web of Science-indexed citation data and publishes in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — but that calculation depends on continuous Web of Science indexing, and Cureus lost that status in 2025.
Current status: no active Impact Factor
Clarivate placed Cureus (ISSN 2168-8184) ‘on hold’ in its Web of Science indexing in September 2024, and formally removed the journal from the Web of Science Master Journal List in October 2025. Clarivate has not published a detailed public rationale, but the removal followed a period of substantial retraction activity and reported article-quality concerns. Because Web of Science indexing is the source of the citation data a JIF is built from, delisting means Cureus does not receive a 2025 Impact Factor and will not receive one for subsequent years unless it is re-indexed. This is a live, checkable fact, not a stable one — confirm current status directly against Clarivate’s Master Journal List (mjl.clarivate.com) rather than an older cached description, including this one.
What Cureus’s own site currently says
Cureus’s own publisher site (cureus.com, checked directly during this revision) currently describes the title as “a Springer Nature journal with an Impact Factor of 1.3” in its general marketing copy, without stating which JCR data year that figure belongs to. This is a primary-source (publisher) statement, but it is not dated, and it does not mention the Web of Science hold or October 2025 delisting described above. CASRAI could not reach Clarivate’s Master Journal List interface (a JS-driven application) to independently confirm Cureus’s live indexing status in this session. Readers should treat cureus.com’s “1.3” figure as the publisher’s own historical/marketing reference rather than confirmation of a current, active JCR Impact Factor, and should not assume it reflects a post-delisting reinstatement unless independently confirmed against Clarivate’s Master Journal List directly.
What Cureus’s Impact Factor was before delisting
Before removal, Cureus did receive JCR figures for several annual cycles. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregator sites report Cureus’s most recent 2-year JIF inconsistently — figures cited include approximately 1.2, attributed to the 2022 JCR release, and approximately 1.3, attributed to a 2024 release — with different aggregator pages disagreeing about which figure is the journal’s actual ‘last’ one (a figure near 1.3 is also what cureus.com’s own marketing copy currently cites, per the note above). Neither figure could be independently confirmed against a single primary Clarivate source at the time of writing, since a delisted journal’s JCR entry is not maintained the way a currently-indexed journal’s is. Treat any specific Cureus JIF number found online as historical background at best, not as a current, citable figure.
Impact Factor trend and quartile history
The two aggregator-reported figures above — roughly 1.2 for the 2022 JCR release and roughly 1.3 for a 2024 release — describe a two-year window, not a full multi-year trend; neither aggregator publishes its underlying methodology or the full run of prior years, so a longer year-by-year trend line cannot be responsibly reconstructed from what is publicly available. A JCR quartile ranking (Q1 through Q4) is a journal’s Impact Factor position relative to other journals in the same Web of Science subject category, and it is recalculated at every JCR release — see CASRAI’s guide to JCR quartile rankings for how the calculation works in general. Because a quartile is derived directly from an active Impact Factor, and Cureus has not received an Impact Factor since its Web of Science removal, it correspondingly has no current quartile assignment in any category. CASRAI could not confirm Cureus’s last-assigned historical quartile against a primary Clarivate source during this revision; treat any specific historical quartile figure found elsewhere with the same caution applied to the 1.2/1.3 historical Impact Factor figures above.
Be alert to a further-degraded version of the same problem. Several non-Clarivate impact-factor-aggregator sites currently display a purported “2025 Impact Factor” or “2026 Impact Factor” for Cureus — in at least one case seen during this revision, alongside a quartile such as Q3. This cannot be reconciled with Clarivate’s own record: Cureus was removed from the Web of Science Master Journal List in October 2025, before a 2025-data-year JCR release would exist, so there is no primary 2025-or-later Impact Factor for any site to legitimately report. A current-dated figure appearing on a non-Clarivate site should be read as that site’s own estimate or template output, not as evidence Cureus has been reinstated — confirm any reinstatement claim only against mjl.clarivate.com directly.
Cureus in the other indexes: PubMed, MEDLINE, and Scopus
Losing Web of Science indexing is not the same as disappearing from the literature. Clarivate’s index is one of several, each run by a different organisation with its own selection committee and its own criteria, and a decision by one implies nothing about the others. The question that follows a delisting is therefore not “is Cureus still indexed?” but “indexed where, and for what purpose?” — and the answer differs by database.
PubMed: yes, via PMC — but not MEDLINE-indexed
This is the distinction that most often gets collapsed, and getting it wrong changes what a literature search returns. Cureus’s record in the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s own NLM Catalog (NLM ID 101596737, record last revised 11 May 2026) states two separate things:
- Coverage: “In: PubMed: v7n1, Jan. 2015-, PMC” — Cureus content is in PubMed from volume 7, issue 1 (January 2015) onward, and it gets there through PMC (PubMed Central) deposit.
- Indexing status: “Not currently indexed for MEDLINE.“
PubMed is a search interface over more than one collection. MEDLINE is the curated subset whose journals have been selected by NLM’s review process and whose articles receive full MeSH subject indexing; PMC-deposited content also appears in PubMed but has not been through that selection. So both of the following are true at once, and neither contradicts the other: a plain PubMed search will return Cureus articles, and a search restricted to MEDLINE will not. If you have been told “Cureus is in PubMed” and also “Cureus is not indexed,” both statements are probably accurate and are describing different things.
The practical consequences are worth stating plainly. Cureus articles are citable, discoverable, permanently archived, and carry PMIDs — none of that changed with the Web of Science delisting. What they do not carry is MeSH indexing, which means they are invisible to the MeSH-term searches and MEDLINE-filtered systematic-review strategies that many clinical literature searches rely on. For an author deciding where to publish, that is a more concrete consequence than the absence of an Impact Factor.
Scopus: check it, do not infer it
Scopus is Elsevier’s citation database, entirely separate from Clarivate’s Web of Science, with its own Content Selection and Advisory Board and its own re-evaluation process. CASRAI could not verify Cureus’s current Scopus coverage against a primary Elsevier source during this revision and is not asserting a status either way. Two things can still be said with confidence:
- Do not infer Scopus status from Web of Science status. The two databases discontinue titles independently and on different timetables; a journal can be removed from one and retained by the other. Treating the Clarivate delisting as evidence about Scopus is a guess, not a finding.
- Scopus coverage produces a CiteScore, not an Impact Factor. If you find a Scopus-derived figure for Cureus, it is a different metric on a different formula over a different citation window, and it is not a substitute for, or evidence of, a JCR Impact Factor.
To check it yourself, search Elsevier’s Scopus Sources list, or Scopus itself with institutional access, by the ISSN 2168-8184 — and note the date you checked, because coverage status changes.
Status at a glance
Every row below is a status with a date attached, because none of them is permanent. Re-check rather than quote this table as settled:
| Database / metric | Status | As of | Where to verify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web of Science Core Collection | Placed “on hold” September 2024; removed from the Master Journal List October 2025 | as described on this page | Clarivate Master Journal List, mjl.clarivate.com |
| Journal Impact Factor (JCR) | No active JIF; no current quartile | follows from the delisting above | jcr.clarivate.com (institutional subscription) |
| PubMed | Covered from v7n1, January 2015 onward, via PMC | NLM Catalog record revised 11 May 2026 | NLM Catalog, NLM ID 101596737 |
| MEDLINE | Not currently indexed for MEDLINE | NLM Catalog record revised 11 May 2026 | NLM Catalog, NLM ID 101596737 |
| Scopus / CiteScore | Not verified by CASRAI — no status asserted | — | Scopus Sources list, by ISSN 2168-8184 |
| Publisher | Springer Nature (acquired December 2022) | ownership unchanged by the indexing decisions above | cureus.com; Springer Nature |
Editorial model and scope
Cureus is an open-access general medical journal, originally launched as PeerEMed in 2009 and relaunched under the Cureus name in December 2012; Springer Nature acquired it in December 2022. Its defining editorial characteristics, independent of its Web of Science status, are a high-volume, broad-scope publishing model — it accepts submissions across the full range of clinical medicine and related fields rather than specializing in one subdiscipline — and a peer-review workflow built around speed: pre-publication peer review followed by an optional post-publication commentary and rating layer. Cureus also runs its own in-house metric, the Scholarly Impact Quotient (SIQ), a reader-driven, post-publication score generated on the journal’s own platform. SIQ is frequently confused with a Journal Impact Factor because both are described casually as an article or journal’s ‘impact score,’ but the two are unrelated: SIQ is Cureus-specific and crowdsourced from readers after publication, while JIF is a citation-count ratio Clarivate computes centrally across all Web of Science-indexed journals using the same formula. This breadth-and-speed model is a legitimate, disclosed editorial choice, distinct from — not inherently better or worse than — the narrower-scope, longer-review-cycle model of many specialty journals; the two serve different purposes and should be evaluated on their own disclosed terms rather than assumed to be directly comparable on impact-factor grounds alone, especially now that Cureus has no active JIF to compare.
Why this matters for how the figure gets cited
Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA’s responsible-assessment guidance, journal-level metrics generally should not substitute for evaluating the actual content of a specific paper or the contributions of a specific researcher. Cureus’s delisting sharpens that caution in a specific, practical way: citing a stale or aggregator-sourced ‘Cureus impact factor’ in a CV, grant application, or tenure file risks stating a figure Clarivate no longer maintains or endorses as current — and, per the note above, the publisher’s own marketing copy currently reciting an undated “1.3” figure doesn’t resolve that risk either. Anyone evaluating a Cureus publication for its citation record should check the live Master Journal List status first, note SIQ and JIF as separate metrics if either is cited, and rely on a live JCR/Master Journal List lookup rather than a remembered or previously seen number.
Related terms
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates with one currently-delisted journal’s status.
- Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — the Clarivate publication a JIF is drawn from, and that Cureus no longer appears in.
- Heliyon’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — a related but less severe case: Heliyon was placed on the same September 2024 Web of Science hold but was relisted in May 2026 rather than delisted.
- New England Journal of Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — a contrasting single-journal instance that remains actively Web of Science-indexed.
- CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s separately computed journal-level metric, which uses different eligibility criteria than JCR.
- DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) — the reform commitment behind the over-reliance caution above.
- Is Cureus Peer Reviewed? — CASRAI’s companion guide on Cureus’s editorial and review process.
- How to Look Up a Journal’s Impact Factor — the practical lookup guide this term supports, including Cureus’s delisting as a named example.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Cureus have a current impact factor in 2026?
No, per Clarivate’s Web of Science Master Journal List status as last checked. Clarivate placed Cureus on hold in its Web of Science indexing in September 2024 and formally removed it from the Web of Science Master Journal List in October 2025. Because a Journal Impact Factor is calculated from Web of Science-indexed citation data, Cureus does not receive a 2025 Impact Factor and will not receive one in later years unless it is re-indexed. Note that Cureus’s own site currently displays an undated “Impact Factor of 1.3” in its marketing copy; treat that as the publisher’s own historical reference, not independent confirmation of an active current JCR figure.
Why doesn’t Cureus have an impact factor anymore?
Cureus lost Web of Science indexing, the data source a JIF is built from. Clarivate has not published a detailed public rationale for the delisting, but it followed a period of substantial retraction activity at the journal and reported article-quality concerns.
What was Cureus’s impact factor before it was delisted?
Third-party JCR-tracking aggregator sites report figures of approximately 1.2, attributed to the 2022 JCR release, and approximately 1.3, attributed to a 2024 release, but the sources disagree on which is the journal’s actual last figure. Neither could be confirmed against a single primary Clarivate source, so treat any specific Cureus JIF number found online as historical background rather than a current, citable figure.
Does Cureus currently have a JCR quartile ranking, such as Q1 or Q2?
No. A JCR quartile ranking is derived from a journal’s Impact Factor position within its subject category in the Journal Citation Reports, so a journal without an active JIF — as is currently the case for Cureus — does not have a current quartile assignment either. CASRAI could not confirm Cureus’s last historical quartile (from before the October 2025 delisting) against a primary Clarivate source; treat any specific historical quartile number found on a third-party site with the same caution as the 1.2/1.3 historical Impact Factor figures discussed on this page.
Why do some websites list a 2025 or 2026 Impact Factor for Cureus?
Several non-Clarivate impact-factor-aggregator sites currently display a purported 2025 or 2026 Impact Factor for Cureus, in some cases with a quartile such as Q3 attached. This cannot be reconciled with Clarivate’s own record: Cureus was removed from the Web of Science Master Journal List in October 2025, before that data year’s JCR figures would exist, so there is no primary 2025-or-later Impact Factor to report. Treat a current-dated figure on a non-Clarivate site as that site’s own estimate, not evidence of reinstatement, and confirm any reinstatement claim directly against mjl.clarivate.com.
Is Cureus indexed in PubMed?
Yes. NLM’s own catalog record (NLM ID 101596737, revised 11 May 2026) records Cureus in PubMed from volume 7, issue 1 (January 2015) onward, via PMC. The same record states that Cureus is “not currently indexed for MEDLINE,” so its articles appear in a plain PubMed search but not in a MEDLINE-restricted one, and they do not carry MeSH indexing. The Web of Science delisting did not affect PubMed coverage — they are separate databases run by separate organisations.
Is Cureus indexed in Scopus?
CASRAI could not verify Cureus’s current Scopus coverage against a primary Elsevier source and does not assert a status either way. Scopus is a separate database from Web of Science with its own selection board, so the Clarivate delisting is not evidence about Scopus. Check Elsevier’s Scopus Sources list by ISSN 2168-8184, and note that Scopus coverage yields a CiteScore, which is a different metric from a JCR Impact Factor.
Is Cureus still published by Springer Nature?
Yes. Springer Nature acquired Cureus in December 2022, and that ownership is separate from the journal’s Web of Science indexing status, which changed later in 2024-2025.
What is Cureus’s ISSN?
Cureus’s ISSN is 2168-8184.
Last verified 2026-08-16, including a direct check of cureus.com’s own current marketing copy (noted above) and an unsuccessful attempt to query Clarivate’s Master Journal List interface directly. Clarivate republishes the Journal Citation Reports every June — re-check Cureus’s live Web of Science status periodically, since re-indexing (or a Heliyon-style relisting) would change the answer on this page.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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