Is a Journal Indexed in Web of Science? How to Check and What It Means

To check whether a specific journal is indexed in Web of Science, search its title or ISSN in Clarivate’s free Master Journal List at mjl.clarivate.com — that is the official tool itself, and if a quick lookup is all you need, go there directly. If the journal appears, its profile page shows which Core Collection index covers it — SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, or ESCI — and that distinction changes what the result actually means. If it does not appear, it is not currently indexed in the Core Collection.

This page is CASRAI’s guide to using the Master Journal List (MJL) correctly and interpreting what it returns — it is not the tool itself. Three things trip people up in practice: MJL is not the same thing as “Web of Science” the broader research platform, so a title can be part of the wider platform experience without sitting inside MJL’s Core Collection scope; “indexed” is not one uniform status once you know which of the four Core Collection indexes a title sits in; and a journal that no longer appears, or appears with a coverage end date, was very likely delisted rather than simply never added. This guide covers how to search MJL correctly, what a journal profile page shows, how the four indexes differ in practice, and how to tell delisting from non-indexing.

Cureus’s Web of Science indexing is a recent case in point.

For how to search Web of Science’s literature database itself (finding articles, not checking journal status), see CASRAI’s How to Search Web of Science Effectively. For the broader question of what “indexed” means across databases generally, see What Does It Mean for a Journal to Be Indexed?. This page narrows in on the Master Journal List specifically, as its own tool with its own scope and mechanics.

What the Master Journal List Actually Is

MJL is Clarivate’s public directory of every journal, book series, and conference proceedings title currently or formerly covered by the Web of Science Core Collection. It is accessible free at mjl.clarivate.com without a Web of Science subscription, which makes it the standard first stop for an author, editor, or research administrator who needs to answer “is this specific journal indexed?” without needing library-mediated database access.

This distinction matters operationally: a researcher’s institution may not carry a Web of Science subscription, or a journal may be marketing itself as “indexed in Web of Science” without specifying where. MJL settles the question directly against Clarivate’s own authoritative list rather than trusting a journal’s own claim.

MJL vs. “Being in Web of Science”: Why the Distinction Matters

“Web of Science” is used loosely to mean several different things, and MJL only covers one of them. The Web of Science platform itself is broader than the Core Collection: beyond the six citation indexes bundled into the Core Collection, Clarivate also makes specialty databases available on the same platform (for example, subject-specific tools covering biological or chemical literature), and access to those varies by institutional subscription. The Master Journal List covers Core Collection titles specifically — it is not a comprehensive index of everything searchable somewhere on the Web of Science platform.

Two practical consequences follow:

• A journal not found in MJL is not Core Collection-indexed, regardless of what else might be true about its visibility on the broader platform or in a specialty database.
• Being found in MJL is not one uniform status. MJL tells you which index a title sits in (Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, or Emerging Sources Citation Index), and that distinction carries real weight — see the index-by-index section below.

How to Search the Master Journal List

MJL supports lookup by journal title, keyword, or ISSN/eISSN. Searching by ISSN is the most precise method when a title has changed names, has a close near-duplicate title in another field, or when you want to confirm you have the correct edition (print vs. electronic ISSN) of a journal that publishes in both formats.

A search returns a list of matching titles; selecting one opens a journal profile page with more detail than the search-results list alone shows.

Step-by-Step: How to Check a Specific Journal’s Status

The short answer is at the top of this page: search MJL directly. In practice, a few small choices at each step determine whether the search gives a clean, conclusive answer or an ambiguous one.

1. Go to mjl.clarivate.com. No account, login, or Web of Science subscription is required to search.
2. Search by ISSN or eISSN if you have it, rather than by title. An ISSN search is unambiguous. A title search can return several similarly named journals, or miss the correct match entirely if the journal has changed its name or publisher.
3. If you only have a title, use the exact current title and check every result in the list carefully — a renamed or transferred journal sometimes appears as a separate, cross-referenced record from its earlier title.
4. Open the full journal profile page, not just the search-results row. The results list is a pointer; the profile page is the actual coverage record.
5. Read the coverage field to see which Core Collection index the title sits in — SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, or ESCI — and the coverage start year.
6. Check for a coverage end date or a discontinued note on the profile. A title can still appear in MJL after it stops being actively covered, shown with an end date rather than being removed from the list outright — see the delisting section below for what that means and how to spot it.
7. Weigh the specific index before drawing a conclusion. A journal in ESCI is genuinely Core Collection-indexed, but that is a different, less selective signal than SCIE, SSCI, or AHCI inclusion — see the comparison table below before treating “in MJL” as one uniform status.
8. If nothing matches, the journal is not currently part of the Web of Science Core Collection. That is a complete, conclusive answer in itself — MJL is the authoritative record, so there is no separate Clarivate source to cross-check it against.

If what you actually need is the journal’s current Impact Factor rather than just its indexing status, the profile page will indicate JCR eligibility, but the figure itself is looked up separately — see CASRAI’s How to Look Up a Journal’s Impact Factor.

What a Journal Profile Page Shows

A journal’s MJL profile page is the authoritative record of its Core Collection status. It typically includes:

• ISSN and eISSN — useful for confirming you have matched the correct title when a publisher runs both print and electronic editions under related-but-distinct identifiers.
• Publisher name and location.
• Which Web of Science Core Collection index (or indexes) the title is covered in — SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, and/or ESCI.
• Coverage details, including the subject categories the journal is classified under within Web of Science.
• Journal-level indicators where applicable, such as whether the title currently receives a Journal Impact Factor through Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

A downloadable master list (exportable to spreadsheet format) is also available for bulk lookups — useful for a research office or library checking indexing status across many titles at once rather than one at a time through the search interface.

The Four Core Collection Indexes MJL Covers

MJL will place an indexed title into one or more of the following, and the difference between them matters for how much weight the indexing status should carry:

• Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) — the core science and technology index, covering thousands of actively publishing journals across science subject categories, with full editorial vetting against Clarivate’s quality and impact criteria.
• Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) — the equivalent index for social-science titles, evaluated and maintained separately from SCIE; acceptance into one does not extend to the other, since each is reviewed against its own discipline-specific quality bar.
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) — the equivalent index for arts and humanities titles.
• Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) — covers journals under evaluation that have not yet met the full SCIE, SSCI, or AHCI selection criteria. ESCI is still part of the Web of Science Core Collection and is searchable in MJL and on the platform, but it is a distinct, lower editorial bar than full SCIE/SSCI/AHCI inclusion — a title can sit in ESCI for years without ever being promoted, or can be promoted or delisted after re-evaluation. Since the 2023 Journal Citation Reports release, ESCI titles became eligible to receive a Journal Impact Factor alongside SCIE/SSCI/AHCI titles (before that release, JIF eligibility was limited to SCIE and SSCI only) — but ESCI status itself is still a materially different, less selective signal than full-index inclusion, and it is worth checking which specific index a title sits in rather than treating “in Web of Science” as one undifferentiated status.

What Each Index Does and Doesn’t Imply

“Indexed in Web of Science” is not one uniform status, even within the Master Journal List itself. The table below summarizes what inclusion in each Core Collection index does and does not carry with it, based on how Clarivate structures Journal Citation Reports (JCR) eligibility.

Index	What it covers	Receives a Journal Impact Factor (JIF)?	Receives a Journal Citation Indicator (JCI)?
Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)	Science and technology journals meeting full Core Collection selection criteria	Yes	Yes
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)	Social-science journals meeting full Core Collection selection criteria	Yes	Yes
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI)	Arts and humanities journals meeting full Core Collection selection criteria	No — AHCI titles fall outside JCR’s Impact Factor calculation	Yes
Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)	Journals under evaluation that have not yet met full SCIE/SSCI/AHCI criteria	Yes, since the 2023 JCR release (not before)	Yes

Two takeaways follow directly from this table: being listed in MJL at all confirms Core Collection coverage, but it does not by itself confirm a Journal Impact Factor. Check which specific index a title sits in, and confirm current JIF status on the profile page itself, since eligibility rules have changed before (as with the 2023 ESCI expansion) and can change again.

For what the Journal Impact Factor is and how it is calculated once a title is JCR-eligible, see CASRAI’s Journal Impact Factor and Quartile Rankings guide.

Why a Journal Is in ESCI and Not SCIE: the 28 Selection Criteria

The single most common question people bring to a Master Journal List lookup is not “is this journal indexed?” but “why is this journal in that index?” — why a well-known title sits in ESCI rather than SCIE, or why a journal moved between the two. Clarivate’s published selection process answers it directly, and it is worth knowing before you read a profile record, because it changes what the index label means.

Clarivate evaluates every journal against one set of 28 criteria, split into two groups that do different jobs. In Clarivate’s own wording, it uses “a single set of 28 criteria to evaluate journals; these are divided into 24 quality criteria designed to select for editorial rigor and best practice at the journal level, and four impact criteria designed to select the most impactful journals.”

• The 24 quality criteria are the entry bar. They cover editorial rigor and publishing best practice — the things that make a journal a legitimate scholarly venue at all. Meeting them qualifies a journal for the Core Collection.
• The four impact criteria are a second, higher bar, applied on top of the quality criteria to identify the most cited and influential titles.

That split is exactly what separates the four indexes. A journal that meets the 24 quality criteria but not the four impact criteria is indexed in ESCI. A journal that meets both sets is indexed in SCIE, SSCI, or AHCI according to its discipline. So ESCI is not a waiting room for journals of doubtful quality — an ESCI title has passed the same 24 quality criteria as a SCIE title. What it has not (yet) demonstrated is comparable citation impact.

Movement between the indexes runs in both directions

A widespread misreading treats ESCI as a one-way probationary tier that titles either graduate from or fall out of. Clarivate documents the opposite: “ESCI journals that gain impact move to SCIE, SSCI or AHCI. Similarly, SCIE, SSCI and AHCI journals that decrease in impact move to ESCI.”

Two practical consequences follow, and both matter if you are checking a specific journal:

• An ESCI listing does not tell you which direction the journal is travelling. A title in ESCI may be a newer journal that has not yet built citation impact, or an established journal that was in SCIE or SSCI and was moved down. The profile record shows the current index, not the trajectory — if the distinction matters for a promotion file or a submission decision, check the journal’s coverage history rather than inferring it.
• A move from SCIE to ESCI is not a delisting. The journal is still in the Web of Science Core Collection. This is a genuinely different event from removal from coverage, and the two are frequently conflated in author-facing discussion. See the section below on telling delisting apart from non-indexing.

Failing the quality criteria is the separate, more serious outcome: “Any journal that fails to meet the 24 quality criteria will be removed from the Web of Science Core Collection per our Removal from Coverage policy.” Clarivate reserves that decision to itself explicitly, stating that it “in its sole discretion, may remove or deselect a publication or journal from coverage (including a content already indexed in the Web of Science) at any point if the publication or journal fails to maintain our standard of quality, does not comply with ethical standards, or otherwise does not meet the criteria determined by Clarivate.”

Checking One Specific Journal: What the Answer Does and Doesn’t Tell You

Most MJL lookups are about a single named title — someone has a submission decision, a promotion file, or a publisher’s indexing claim to verify. Once you have the profile record open, read it in this order, because each field constrains how you should read the next:

1. Which index or indexes are listed. A journal can legitimately be listed in more than one — an interdisciplinary title may appear in both SCIE and SSCI, for example. Multiple listings are normal, not a data error, and they mean the title cleared both discipline-specific evaluations.
2. Whether that index is a quality-and-impact index or the quality-only index. SCIE, SSCI and AHCI mean both criteria sets were met; ESCI means the 24 quality criteria were met. Both are Core Collection coverage. They are not the same claim.
3. The Web of Science Categories. These are the subject classifications assigned to the journal, and they are a separate facet from the index. A category assignment tells you which peer group the journal is ranked against in Journal Citation Reports; it does not tell you which index the title sits in. Confusing the two produces claims like “indexed in Oncology” that do not mean anything about Core Collection status.
4. The coverage years. Open-ended coverage indicates the title is currently covered. A closed end year is the signal to investigate — see the delisting section below.
5. Whether a Journal Impact Factor is indicated. This follows from the index, not from being listed at all — see the JCR eligibility table above.

What the record will not settle: it does not tell you whether a specific article is indexed. Core Collection coverage is assigned at the title level and applies to a date range, so a paper published outside a journal’s coverage years is not in the Core Collection even though the journal is listed. If you need to confirm a particular paper, search for it in Web of Science itself — see CASRAI’s How to Search Web of Science Effectively, which covers looking a record up directly by DOI.

“SCI”, “SCIE”, and “ISI Indexed”: Untangling the Legacy Names

A large share of indexing questions are really naming questions, because three generations of branding are still in circulation and people use them interchangeably when they do not mean the same thing:

• “ISI indexed” refers to the Institute for Scientific Information, the organisation Eugene Garfield founded and which originated these citation indexes. ISI passed through Thomson Reuters and then to Clarivate. “ISI indexed” is a legacy phrase, not a current Clarivate product name — when a journal advertises itself that way, the checkable claim underneath it is Core Collection coverage, which is what MJL will confirm or refute.
• “SCI” versus “SCIE”. The Science Citation Index Expanded is the index MJL actually reports against for science titles. “SCI” is commonly used as shorthand for it, particularly in national research-assessment contexts where “SCI journal” is a term of art, but a profile record will say Science Citation Index Expanded. Do not read the absence of a bare “SCI” label as evidence that a journal is not covered. CASRAI’s Science Citation Index (SCI/SCIE) entry covers the lineage in detail.
• “Web of Science indexed” without qualification. As covered above, this collapses four different indexes plus the wider platform into one phrase. It is the claim most worth checking against the profile record, because it is technically true of an ESCI title and of a SCIE title alike while carrying very different weight.

The practical rule for all three: treat the label as a claim, and check the profile record for what it actually resolves to. See also CASRAI’s Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) entry and the broader Journal Indexing: DOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science guide for how these sit alongside other databases’ indexing claims.

How Journals Get Added or Removed from Coverage

Inclusion in the Web of Science Core Collection is an editorial decision made by Clarivate’s Web of Science editors, not an automatic or purchasable status. Clarivate publishes evaluation criteria covering journal quality, editorial rigor, publishing ethics, and regularity of publication; editors retain discretion in applying them to both new-title submissions and periodic re-evaluation of already-indexed titles. A title can be removed from coverage if it stops meeting quality standards, fails to comply with publication-ethics expectations, or is found to have violated Clarivate’s editorial policies — delisting does happen, and a formerly-indexed title that no longer appears (or appears with a coverage end date) in MJL is a meaningful signal in its own right, not a database glitch.

Because criteria and coverage change over time, MJL — not a journal’s own website, a cached search result, or a prior year’s records — is the source to check for current status.

How to Tell If a Journal Has Been Delisted

MJL does not publish a separate, standalone “delisted journals” file — a title’s delisting status is recorded directly on its own profile page inside the Master Journal List itself, not in a separate registry. To check a specific journal:

• Search the journal in MJL as described above and open its profile page.
• Look for a coverage end date. An actively covered title shows open-ended coverage (a start year with no end year); a delisted title shows a coverage end year attached to its record.
• Look for wording indicating the title is discontinued or has had coverage suspended, rather than simply not yet added. From a distance both look like “not currently indexed,” but only one means the journal was previously indexed and later removed.
• Treat a formerly-indexed title that no longer shows active coverage as a real signal, not a data error — per Clarivate’s own editorial policy (covered above), removal follows a finding around quality, ethics, or policy compliance, not routine turnover.

For what actually triggers a Web of Science delisting, how the review process works, and what it means for authors who already published in an affected journal, see CASRAI’s Why Journals Get Delisted From Web of Science. Scopus runs a comparable but separate editorial process with its own outcomes; see Why and How Scopus Delists Journals if you need to check a title’s Scopus status too — indexing status in one database does not imply anything about the other.

Why This Matters for Research Administrators and Authors

Journal indexing status in Web of Science routinely feeds into decisions well beyond literature searching: some tenure and promotion committees and some funders treat Core Collection inclusion (and, more specifically, which index a title sits in) as one input among several when evaluating a researcher’s publication record, and it is a standard field in publisher-vetting checklists used to screen for predatory or low-quality venues. Because a claim of “indexed in Web of Science” is easy to make and hard to verify from a journal’s own marketing, confirming the claim directly in MJL — and noting whether the title sits in SCIE/SSCI/AHCI versus ESCI — is the reliable way to check it rather than take it at face value.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Web of Science Master Journal List free to use?

Yes. MJL is publicly accessible at mjl.clarivate.com without a Web of Science subscription. This is distinct from the Web of Science platform itself and from Journal Citation Reports, both of which are typically subscription-gated at research libraries.

How do I check if a specific journal is indexed in Web of Science?

Search the journal’s title or ISSN directly in MJL at mjl.clarivate.com. If it appears, its profile page will show which Core Collection index (or indexes) it is covered in. If it does not appear, it is not currently part of the Web of Science Core Collection, regardless of what the journal’s own website claims.

What is the difference between the Master Journal List and Web of Science Core Collection?

The Core Collection is the set of citation indexes (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI, plus the Conference Proceedings and Book Citation Indexes) that Clarivate curates and makes searchable on the Web of Science platform. MJL is the free public directory tool for checking which journals are covered by those indexes — it is a lookup tool for the Core Collection’s contents, not a separate database.

Does being in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) count as “being in Web of Science”?

Yes, in the sense that ESCI is part of the Web of Science Core Collection and ESCI titles are searchable in MJL and on the platform. But ESCI is a distinct, less selective tier than SCIE, SSCI, or AHCI — it covers journals under evaluation that have not yet met those indexes’ full criteria — so it is worth specifying which index a title sits in rather than treating all Core Collection inclusion as equivalent.

Why is a journal in ESCI and not SCIE?

Because Clarivate evaluates journals against one set of 28 criteria split into two groups: 24 quality criteria covering editorial rigor and publishing best practice, and four impact criteria identifying the most cited titles. A journal that meets the 24 quality criteria but not the four impact criteria is indexed in ESCI. A journal meeting both is indexed in SCIE, SSCI, or AHCI by discipline. An ESCI title has therefore passed the same quality bar as a SCIE title — what it has not demonstrated is comparable citation impact.

Can a journal move from SCIE back down to ESCI?

Yes, and this is widely misunderstood. Clarivate states that “ESCI journals that gain impact move to SCIE, SSCI or AHCI. Similarly, SCIE, SSCI and AHCI journals that decrease in impact move to ESCI.” Movement runs in both directions. A demotion from SCIE to ESCI is not a delisting — the journal remains in the Web of Science Core Collection. Removal from coverage is the separate, more serious outcome that follows a failure against the 24 quality criteria.

Is “SCI indexed” or “ISI indexed” the same as being in Web of Science?

Roughly, but neither is a current Clarivate product name. “ISI” refers to the Institute for Scientific Information, which originated these citation indexes and passed through Thomson Reuters to Clarivate. “SCI” is common shorthand — particularly in national research-assessment contexts — for what a Master Journal List profile record actually calls Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). In all three cases the checkable claim underneath the label is Core Collection coverage, which is exactly what MJL confirms or refutes.

How often is the Master Journal List updated?

Clarivate adds and removes titles from Core Collection coverage on an ongoing basis as new journals are evaluated and existing titles are re-reviewed, so MJL reflects current status rather than a fixed annual snapshot. Because coverage changes, a specific journal’s status should be re-checked directly in MJL rather than assumed to be static from a prior lookup.

Where can I find a list of journals that have been delisted from Web of Science?

There is no separate, standalone “delisted titles” file to download. Delisting is recorded on the individual journal’s own Master Journal List profile page as a coverage end date or discontinued note — check the specific title you’re interested in directly in MJL. For the reasons journals get delisted and what it means for authors, see CASRAI’s Why Journals Get Delisted From Web of Science.

Does being listed in the Master Journal List mean a journal has a Journal Impact Factor?

Not necessarily. Inclusion in MJL confirms Web of Science Core Collection coverage, but the Journal Impact Factor is calculated only for certain indexes: SCIE, SSCI, and (since the 2023 Journal Citation Reports release) ESCI titles are JIF-eligible; AHCI titles are not, though they do receive a Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) instead. Check the specific index a title sits in, and confirm current status directly — see CASRAI’s How to Look Up a Journal’s Impact Factor.