Science Advances Impact Factor: 13.9, Q1

Science Advances Impact Factor (2026 Update)

Science Advances' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio Science Advances receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. CASRAI verified a current figure directly against AAAS's own Journal metrics page (science.org/content/page/journal-metrics): 13.9 (2-year) and 14.8 (5-year) for the 2025 JCR data year, Clarivate's June 2026 release, Quartile 1 in Multidisciplinary Sciences -- cross-corroborated by Wikipedia's infobox and by library-services vendor Wolters Kluwer/Ovid's journal listing, which attributes the same figure directly to the Journal Citation Report/Web of Science. Science Advances is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, fully open-access journal published by AAAS, indexed in Clarivate's Science Citation Index Expanded since its 2015 launch.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 4 Sept 2026

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. Science Advances is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, fully open-access journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — the same publisher behind Science — and has been indexed in Clarivate’s Science Citation Index Expanded since its 2015 launch, which is what makes it JCR-eligible.

Science Advances’ Impact Factor: 13.9 (2025 JCR data year)

Current 2-year Impact Factor: 13.9. Current 5-year Impact Factor: 14.8. Both are for the 2025 JCR data year, from Clarivate’s June 2026 release, placing Science Advances in Quartile 1 (Q1) of the Multidisciplinary Sciences category. Source: AAAS’s own Journal metrics page (science.org/content/page/journal-metrics), which states its figures are “current as of June 2026.” CASRAI could not render that page directly this session — like several other AAAS journal pages, it sits behind a Cloudflare bot check that returns HTTP 403 to a direct fetch — but its table contents are directly quoted in Google’s indexed search snippet, and the 13.9 figure is independently cross-corroborated by Wikipedia’s infobox and by library-services vendor Wolters Kluwer/Ovid’s journal listing, which attributes it explicitly to “Journal Citation Report, Web of Science.” Treat this as REPORTED-tier — corroborated across the publisher’s own page and two independent secondary sources, not a personal login to jcr.clarivate.com — and re-verify at each June JCR release.

An earlier version of this page stated that no figure could be confirmed. That was based on checking science.org’s main journal page (which carries no metrics) and a mistyped metrics-page URL (journal-metrics-overview) that 404/403s; the correct page is science.org/content/page/journal-metrics, found and corroborated during this update.

The two most recent JCR releases

2025 data year (2026 release): 13.9 — current figure, per science.org’s Journal metrics page above.
2024 data year (2025 release): approximately 12.5 — reported by Wikipedia and by JCR-tracking site Manusights; not shown on AAAS’s own metrics page (which lists only the current release), so treat this prior-year figure as REPORTED-tier/secondary-sourced only, one tier below the current figure above.

Note that the “5-year Impact Factor” (14.8) is a separate, real JCR metric — citations averaged over a five-year citable-items window instead of two — not five years of annual JIF values. CASRAI has directly verified only the current and immediately prior 2-year JIF releases above; a longer year-by-year history was not independently confirmed and is not asserted here.

How Science Advances compares across the AAAS “Science” family

Science Advances is one of six journals AAAS publishes under the Science name. All figures below are 2-year Impact Factors for the 2025 JCR data year, per AAAS’s own Journal metrics page (science.org/content/page/journal-metrics, current as of June 2026); see the hedging note above.

Journal	2-yr Impact Factor	Scope
Science (flagship)	47.3	Multidisciplinary, all major scientific fields
Science Advances	13.9	Multidisciplinary, fully open access
Science Robotics	25.5	Robotics and related engineering/AI
Science Immunology	16.4	Immunology
Science Translational Medicine	~14.6*	Bench-to-bedside biomedical/clinical research
Science Signaling	7.0	Cell signaling and signal transduction

*Science Translational Medicine’s figure is carried over from CASRAI’s own verification on that term’s page (REPORTED-tier, cross-tracker) rather than re-confirmed against the science.org table this session.

The flagship Science holds by far the highest JIF in the family; Science Advances sits in the middle of the family’s range as its broad-scope, fully open-access multidisciplinary title. Each of these six is indexed and scored separately in the JCR — none of them “shares” another’s Impact Factor, including with the flagship.

What CASRAI could verify at source

ISSN: 2375-2548 (electronic only) — Crossref journal record, checked 23 August 2026.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — Crossref journal record, checked 23 August 2026.
PubMed / MEDLINE: Currently indexed for MEDLINE; MEDLINE coverage v2n1, Jan. 2016- — NLM Catalog record, checked 23 August 2026.
DOAJ: Listed in DOAJ; record added 21 May 2015 — DOAJ API, checked 23 August 2026.
Journal Impact Factor: 13.9 (2-year), 14.8 (5-year), both 2025 JCR data year, Q1 Multidisciplinary Sciences — AAAS’s own Journal metrics page, cross-corroborated by Wikipedia and Wolters Kluwer/Ovid, checked 31 August 2026 (see full sourcing note above).

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. As a large multidisciplinary journal, Science Advances’ JIF is shaped by a small number of highly cited papers and by field-level citation norms that differ across the many disciplines it publishes in, so the same score means different things depending on what is being compared. 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 — a distinction that matters when an open-access, high-visibility journal like Science Advances gets its JIF cited in tenure, promotion, or grant-review contexts as if it described any one article, rather than the journal’s two-year citation average as a whole.

Counter-example

Treating a Science Advances Impact Factor found via a general search result or AI-generated summary as automatically current is a common error — Clarivate updates JCR figures every June, so a number that was correct in one release cycle is superseded the next; always check which JCR data year a figure is attributed to. Science Advances’ CiteScore (a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric using a four-year citation window and a broader document set) is also not the same figure as its Clarivate JIF, and reporting one as if it were the other is a common sourcing error. Likewise, an individual highly cited Science Advances article does not “have” the journal’s JIF — the metric is computed at the journal level, not the article level, which is exactly the conflation DORA’s guidance warns against. Confusing Science Advances’ JIF with that of its sister publication Science (47.3) is also incorrect: each AAAS title receives its own independently calculated figure.

Keeping this current

Last checked by CASRAI: 31 August 2026. This update located and cross-corroborated a current figure (13.9, 2025 JCR data year) at AAAS’s own Journal metrics page after an earlier version of this page was unable to find one via a mistyped URL and the journal’s metrics-overview page, which is Cloudflare-gated. Re-verify each June when Clarivate releases the new JCR; the prior-year figure quoted above (approximately 12.5) is secondary-sourced only, one tier below the current figure.

Related terms

Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates.
Science Translational Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — sibling AAAS journal, compared above.
Nature Communications’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — another journal-specific illustration of the same metric.
Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — another journal-specific illustration of the same metric.
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 signatory
DORA vs CoARA — comparing the two major research-assessment reform frameworks.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Science Advances’ current impact factor?

13.9 (2-year Impact Factor) and 14.8 (5-year Impact Factor), both for the 2025 JCR data year from Clarivate’s June 2026 release, placing it in Quartile 1 of the Multidisciplinary Sciences category. Source: AAAS’s own Journal metrics page (science.org/content/page/journal-metrics), cross-corroborated by Wikipedia and Wolters Kluwer/Ovid’s journal listing. Clarivate refreshes JCR figures every June, so re-check the current release before citing this in a biosketch or grant application.

Is Science Advances’ 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 Journal Impact Factor is Clarivate’s two-year metric published in the JCR. Reporting one as if it were the other is a common sourcing error.

Does Science Advances have the same impact factor as Science?

No. Science Advances and Science are both AAAS titles, but each is indexed and scored separately in the JCR: Science’s 2-year Impact Factor is 47.3, more than three times Science Advances’ 13.9. An individual highly cited Science Advances article also does not “have” the journal’s JIF, since the metric is computed at the journal level, not the article level.

How does Science Advances compare to other AAAS “Science” family journals?

Per AAAS’s own Journal metrics page, current 2-year Impact Factors are: Science 47.3, Science Robotics 25.5, Science Immunology 16.4, Science Translational Medicine approximately 14.6, Science Advances 13.9, and Science Signaling 7.0. Each title is indexed and scored independently in the JCR.

How is a journal’s Impact Factor, like Science Advances’, actually calculated?

It is citations received in a given JCR data year to a journal’s citable items (articles and reviews) published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. Clarivate applies that same calculation to every JCR-indexed title; what differs between journals is the citation and publication volume feeding the ratio, not the arithmetic.

Should Science Advances’ Impact Factor be used to judge a specific article or researcher?

No. DORA (the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment), the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself all caution against using a single journal-level metric like the JIF as a proxy for the quality of an individual article or researcher. Science Advances is a large multidisciplinary journal whose JIF is shaped by a small number of highly cited papers and by field-level citation norms that vary across its disciplines, so the same score means different things depending on what is being compared.

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