Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A hiring committee checking Nature's current 2-year JIF (reported around 56.1 for the most recent JCR release) as one data point among several, understanding the figure describes the journal's two-year citation average, not any specific candidate's paper.
- Is an instance
A librarian explaining to faculty that Nature, Nature Communications, and Scientific Reports each receive their own separate JIF from Clarivate every June, despite sharing the Nature Portfolio brand and Springer Nature as publisher.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Citing Nature Communications' or Scientific Reports' JIF and calling it "Nature's impact factor" -- each Nature Portfolio journal is indexed and scored separately by Clarivate; the sister titles' figures are not interchangeable with Nature's own.
- Not an instance
Describing a single highly cited Nature paper as "having" the journal's JIF, or treating a researcher's Nature publication record as if the journal's JIF measured that researcher's individual impact -- the metric is computed at the journal level only, which is exactly the conflation DORA's guidance cautions against.
Editorial commentary
Nature’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, illustrative instance of the general Journal Impact Factor metric published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Nature — the flagship, multidisciplinary weekly journal first published in 1869 — is a distinct title from Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, and the 60-plus other journals in the Nature Portfolio published by Springer Nature. Each of those titles is indexed and scored separately by Clarivate, so a JIF reported under one Nature Portfolio journal’s name is never Nature’s own figure, even though all share the “Nature” brand and the same publisher.
What the number actually measures
The JIF is a ratio: citations received in a given year to citable items (articles and reviews) the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. Nature is indexed in Clarivate’s Science Citation Index Expanded under the Multidisciplinary Sciences JCR category, where it consistently ranks among the highest-scoring titles.
Nature is a peer-reviewed research journal, not solely a magazine, though its weekly issues also carry non-peer-reviewed news, comment, and feature journalism alongside primary research papers — a hybrid format that plausibly explains why “Nature magazine” persists as casual search phrasing even though the JIF applies only to the peer-reviewed research content Clarivate tracks.
Nature’s Impact Factor in 2026: what the named sources actually say
Nature’s Journal Impact Factor is 56.1, for the 2025 JCR data year — the release Clarivate issued in June 2026. The source is Nature Portfolio’s own Journal Metrics page for Nature (nature.com/nature/journal-impact). It appears there verbatim as “Journal Impact Factor: 56.1 (2025)”, retrieved 23 August 2026. That is the publisher restating Clarivate’s number for its own title — not a third-party JCR-tracking aggregator and not a Wikipedia infobox, either of which can lag behind or drift from the release Clarivate actually issued.
Clarivate republishes the JCR every June, so this figure is current only for the 2025 data year. Re-check it at the publisher’s page or in JCR itself before putting it in a CV, tenure file, grant application or funder report — and say which data year you mean when you cite it.
What CASRAI could verify at source
- ISSN: 0028-0836 (print), 1476-4687 (online) — Crossref journal record, checked 23 August 2026.
- Publisher: Springer Nature — Crossref journal record, checked 23 August 2026.
- PubMed / MEDLINE: Currently indexed for MEDLINE — NLM Catalog record, checked 23 August 2026.
- DOAJ: Not listed in DOAJ (subscription/hybrid journal) — DOAJ API, checked 23 August 2026.
- Journal Impact Factor: 56.1 for the 2025 JCR data year; 5-year Impact Factor 56.7 — Nature Portfolio’s own Journal Metrics page for Nature (nature.com/nature/journal-impact), retrieved 23 August 2026.
Why this number alone is a poor stand-in for quality
Citation-tracking organizations including DORA, the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself caution against over-relying on a single journal-level metric to judge an individual article or researcher. Nature’s own selectivity and prestige make this caution especially relevant in practice: because so much weight is informally attached to a “Nature paper,” it is tempting to treat the journal’s JIF as if it described the citation performance of any specific article published there, or of the researchers who wrote it. DORA’s core recommendation is not to eliminate the JIF, but to stop using it as a proxy for the quality of a specific paper or the merit of an individual researcher’s work in hiring, tenure, promotion, or grant-review decisions.
Counter-example
Nature’s CiteScore (a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric using a four-year citation window and a broader document set) is not the same figure as its Clarivate JIF, and reporting one as if it were the other is a common sourcing error. Likewise, a specific highly cited Nature paper does not “have” the journal’s JIF — the metric is computed at the journal level only, never the article level — and neither does an individual author who published there, which is exactly the conflation DORA’s guidance warns against. A separate, easy mix-up worth flagging explicitly: Nature Communications’ JIF (currently in the mid-teens) and Scientific Reports’ JIF (currently under 5) are each real, separately computed figures for real Nature Portfolio journals — neither is Nature’s own JIF, despite the shared publisher and shared brand name.
Related terms
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates with one journal’s current figure.
- Nature Communications’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — a sister Nature Portfolio title’s separately computed JIF.
- Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — a third Nature Portfolio title’s separately computed JIF.
- Nature Author Contributions — Nature’s own authorship-statement policy, a separate editorial requirement from its JIF.
- CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s competing journal-level metric, different window and denominator.
- h-index — an author-level metric, not a journal-level one.
- DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) — the reform commitment behind the over-reliance caveat above.
- DORA vs CoARA — comparing the two major research-assessment reform frameworks.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Nature’s current impact factor?
Multiple independent JCR-tracking aggregators put Nature’s 2-year Impact Factor at approximately 56.1 for the most recent JCR release (2025 citation data, released June 2026), up from about 48.5 in the prior release. Clarivate updates this figure every June, so check jcr.clarivate.com or nature.com/nature/journal-information for the current authoritative number before citing it formally.
How is a journal’s impact factor calculated?
It’s a ratio: citations a journal receives in a given year to the citable items (articles and reviews) it published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. Clarivate applies this same calculation to every journal in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), from a single-issue society title to a high-volume mega-journal.
Is Nature’s impact factor the same as Nature Communications’ or Scientific Reports’ impact factor?
No. Nature is a distinct title from Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, and the 60-plus other Nature Portfolio journals published by Springer Nature, and Clarivate indexes and scores each one separately. A JIF reported under a sister journal’s name is never Nature’s own figure, even though they share the “Nature” brand and publisher.
Is Nature a magazine or a peer-reviewed journal?
Nature is a peer-reviewed research journal, not solely a magazine, though its weekly issues also carry non-peer-reviewed news, comment, and feature journalism alongside primary research papers. That hybrid format is likely why “Nature magazine” persists as casual search phrasing, even though the impact factor applies only to the peer-reviewed research content Clarivate tracks.
Does Nature’s impact factor tell you whether a specific paper published there is high quality?
No. The metric is computed at the journal level only, never the article or author level, so it doesn’t describe the citation performance of any individual paper or researcher. DORA and the CoARA coalition specifically caution against using a journal’s impact factor as a proxy for the quality of a specific article or the merit of an individual researcher’s work in hiring, tenure, promotion, or grant-review decisions.
Is Nature’s impact factor the same as its CiteScore?
No. CiteScore is a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric that uses a four-year citation window and a broader document set, while the impact factor is Clarivate’s two-year JCR figure. Reporting one as if it were the other is a common sourcing error.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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