Journal rankings · indicator year 2003
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Domain ranking · 2003
Life Sciences journal rankings 2003
1,712 ranked journals · Domain
Life Sciences has 1,712 ranked journals in 2003. The median OJR rose 0.06 on 2002 to 0.69, below the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 1.19. The top three are Pharmacological Reviews, Cell, and Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2003. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2000–2002, the window the 2003 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Fields in Life Sciences (5)
Up to All journals1,712 ranked journals
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Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2002. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2000–2002, the window the 2003 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2000–2002 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2000 to 2003. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Pharmacological ReviewsAmerican Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics · United States | 11.37Q1 | 21.33 0.24 down from 2002 | 76 | 5% | $4,500 | ||
2CellCell Press · United States | 9.40Q1 | 25.19 0.27 down from 2002 | 1,206 | 94% | $11,400 | ||
3Annual Review of Ecology and SystematicsAnnual Reviews · United States | 8.93Q1 | 8.61 0.39 up from 2002 | 65 | — | — | ||
4Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular BiologyAnnual Reviews · United States | 8.60Q1 | 18.50 2.79 up from 2002 | 48 | 50% | — | ||
5Nature GeneticsNature Portfolio · United States | 7.17Q1 | 16.91 1.40 down from 2002 | 1,088 | 16% | $12,690 | ||
6NatureNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.99Q1 | 10.77 0.28 up from 2002 | 9,010 | 13% | $12,690 | ||
7Journal of Agrarian ChangeWiley · United Kingdom | 6.44Q1 | 3.00 2.42 up from 2002 | 40 | 35% | $3,820 | ||
8Annual Review of Biophysics and Biomolecular StructureAnnual Reviews · United States | 6.22Q1 | 13.92 2.23 down from 2002 | 59 | 5% | — | ||
9Cognitive PsychologyElsevier BV · United States | 6.13Q1 | 5.74 0.41 down from 2002 | 59 | 8% | $3,570 | ||
10ImmunityCell Press · United States | 5.64Q1 | 17.40 1.12 down from 2002 | 473 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
11Sociologia RuralisWiley · Netherlands | 5.56Q1 | 2.00 0.23 up from 2002 | 80 | 11% | $3,920 | ||
12Nature ImmunologyNature Portfolio · United States | 5.32Q1 | 16.52 0.37 up from 2002 | 633 | 11% | $12,690 | ||
13The Journal of Experimental MedicineRockefeller University Press · United States | 5.18Q1 | 15.80no change | 1,067 | 100% | — | ||
14Nature Cell BiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.14Q1 | 14.04 0.08 up from 2002 | 820 | 15% | $12,690 | ||
15Molecular CellElsevier BV · United States | 5.10Q1 | 14.54 1.46 down from 2002 | 896 | 92% | $10,400 | ||
16Progress in Lipid ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.96Q1 | 11.78 2.87 up from 2002 | 55 | 0% | $5,530 | ||
17Recent Progress in Hormone ResearchOAEndocrine Society · United States | 4.95Q1 | 9.67 2.33 up from 2002 | 33 | 100% | — | ||
18Progress in NeurobiologyElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.85Q1 | 14.46 3.17 up from 2002 | 183 | 5% | $5,190 | ||
19ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 4.53Q1 | 6.71 0.78 up from 2002 | 13,648 | 4% | — | ||
20Nature NeuroscienceNature Portfolio · United States | 4.52Q1 | 10.67 0.61 down from 2002 | 868 | 15% | $12,690 | ||
21NeuronCell Press · United States | 4.51Q1 | 13.17 0.54 up from 2002 | 1,146 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
22Psychological ReviewAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 4.51Q1 | 5.82 0.15 down from 2002 | 235 | 5% | — | ||
23The American NaturalistUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 4.39Q1 | 4.54 0.07 down from 2002 | 437 | 8% | — | ||
24Developmental CellElsevier BV · United States | 4.35Q1 | 12.30 4.15 up from 2002 | 298 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
25CognitionElsevier BV · Netherlands | 4.35Q1 | 6.02 0.63 up from 2002 | 219 | 12% | $3,910 | ||
26Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Sciences · United States | 4.33Q1 | 10.56 0.12 up from 2002 | 8,793 | 98% | — | ||
27The EMBO JournalOASpringer Nature · Germany | 4.06Q1 | 11.50 0.21 up from 2002 | 2,076 | 96% | $7,990 | ||
28The American Journal of Human GeneticsElsevier BV · United States | 3.99Q1 | 10.75 1.87 up from 2002 | 1,233 | 76% | $5,150 | ||
29Journal of Rural StudiesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 3.84Q1 | 1.17 0.34 down from 2002 | 142 | 12% | $4,090 | ||
30Frontiers in NeuroendocrinologyElsevier BV · United States | 3.84Q1 | 7.93 1.07 down from 2002 | 40 | 0% | $4,800 | ||
31Ecology LettersWiley · United Kingdom | 3.79Q1 | 4.84 1.31 up from 2002 | 302 | 13% | $5,300 | ||
32Circulation ResearchLippincott Williams & Wilkins · United States | 3.75Q1 | 9.60 0.82 up from 2002 | 1,166 | 54% | — | ||
33Journal of Clinical InvestigationOAAmerican Society for Clinical Investigation · United States | 3.73Q1 | 8.52 2.20 down from 2002 | 2,393 | 77% | $5,200 | ||
34The Plant CellOxford University Press · United States | 3.70Q1 | 7.70 2.02 up from 2002 | 1,194 | 100% | $4,934 | ||
35Nature BiotechnologyNature Portfolio · United States | 3.63Q1 | 7.80 1.95 up from 2002 | 1,260 | 15% | $12,690 | ||
36Journal of Cognitive NeuroscienceThe MIT Press · United States | 3.62Q1 | 6.58 0.32 down from 2002 | 319 | 16% | — | ||
37Human Molecular GeneticsOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.60Q1 | 9.74 0.07 up from 2002 | 1,026 | 25% | $4,390 | ||
38Brain Research ReviewsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.60Q1 | 6.98 0.32 down from 2002 | 249 | 0% | — | ||
39Annual Review of ImmunologyAnnual Reviews · United States | 3.59Q1 | 56.35 2.69 down from 2002 | 83 | 0% | — | ||
40FEMS Microbiology ReviewsOAOxford University Press · Netherlands | 3.54Q1 | 6.88 0.77 up from 2002 | 180 | 59% | $3,297 | ||
41Molecular Plant-Microbe InteractionsOAAmerican Phytopathological Society · United States | 3.46Q1 | 4.23 0.29 down from 2002 | 470 | 53% | $3,000 | ||
42Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesRoyal Society · United Kingdom | 3.45Q1 | 4.57 0.17 up from 2002 | 1,075 | 99% | — | ||
43The Plant JournalWiley · United Kingdom | 3.43Q1 | 6.56 0.21 up from 2002 | 856 | 55% | $5,450 | ||
44Biological PsychiatryElsevier BV · United States | 3.42Q1 | 7.31 0.55 up from 2002 | 796 | 4% | $5,489 | ||
45The Journal of Cell BiologyRockefeller University Press · United States | 3.41Q1 | 9.22 1.91 down from 2002 | 1,850 | 99% | — | ||
46Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Reviews on CancerElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.35Q1 | 9.18 2.59 up from 2002 | 68 | 0% | $5,070 | ||
47Cerebral CortexOxford University Press · United States | 3.33Q1 | 6.51 0.89 down from 2002 | 378 | 27% | $5,038 | ||
48Systematic BiologyOxford University Press · United States | 3.31Q1 | 5.33 0.91 up from 2002 | 298 | 40% | $2,166 | ||
49Neuroscience & Biobehavioral ReviewsElsevier BV · United States | 3.25Q1 | 6.70 0.47 up from 2002 | 184 | 3% | $4,860 | ||
50Psychological ScienceSAGE Publishing · United States | 3.25Q1 | 4.42 1.25 down from 2002 | 302 | 12% | $3,900 |
Citations made in 2003. Corpus-wide, 70.2% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
485 additional Life Sciences journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2000–2002, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2003. Publication window: 2000–2002. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 1,712
- Window papers (baseline)
- 838,563 +23.0% from indicator year 2000
- Median OJR
- 0.69 +16.1% from indicator year 2000
- Rising journals (2025)
- 273
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2000–2002 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 1,416 | 1,528 | 1,615 | 1,712 | 1,731 | 1,801 | 1,865 | 1,956 | 2,004 | 2,096 | 2,222 | 2,355 | 2,484 | 2,599 | 2,705 | 2,838 | 2,923 | 2,983 | 3,027 | 3,037 | 3,015 | 3,000 | 3,030 | 3,032 | 3,014 | 3,016 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 681,698 | 747,894 | 789,157 | 838,563 | 854,790 | 911,302 | 969,983 | 1,041,301 | 1,106,285 | 1,194,995 | 1,291,816 | 1,389,175 | 1,451,151 | 1,495,499 | 1,547,978 | 1,608,280 | 1,646,156 | 1,651,790 | 1,653,566 | 1,677,661 | 1,731,463 | 1,821,734 | 1,907,316 | 1,955,191 | 1,960,779 | 2,008,547 | |
| Median OJR | 0.59 | 0.62 | 0.63 | 0.69 | 0.71 | 0.74 | 0.778 | 0.810 | 0.813 | 0.869 | 0.8675 | 0.90 | 0.91 | 0.873 | 0.8678 | 0.83 | 0.8177 | 0.8180 | 0.80925 | 0.806 | 0.814 | 0.80931 | 0.80 | 0.784 | 0.77 | 0.79 |
| Measure | Category statistic | Eligible population |
|---|---|---|
| Journal self-citation share | Median: 2.5% | 2,489 journals |
| Retracted papers per 1,000 | Pooled rate: 3.276 per 1,000 | 2,252 journals |
| Output growth | Median: -7.1% | 2,737 journals |
| Open access share | Median: 99.1% | 3,016 journals |
| Listed APC (USD) | Median including $0 listed prices: $3,258 | 1,900 ranked journals with a known listed price, including $0 listed prices |
| International collaboration share | Median: 25.1% | 2,917 journals |
| Review share | Median: 0.3% | 3,016 journals |
| Articles-only OJR | Median: 0.79 | 2,965 journals |
| Uncited share | Median: 26.6% | 3,016 journals |
| Citation concentration | Median: 42.9% | 3,011 journals |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.