Journal rankings · indicator year 2004
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Domain ranking · 2004
Life Sciences journal rankings 2004
1,731 ranked journals · Domain
Life Sciences has 1,731 ranked journals in 2004. The median journal has an OJR of 0.71, below the world average of 1.00, up 0.02 on 2003; Q1 starts at OJR 1.21. The top three are Pharmacological Reviews, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, and Cell.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2004. 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 2001–2003, the window the 2004 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 journals1,731 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 2003. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2001–2003, the window the 2004 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2001–2003 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 2004. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Pharmacological ReviewsAmerican Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics · United States | 11.19Q1 | 31.98 10.65 up from 2003 | 82 | 0% | $4,500 | ||
2Annual Review of Ecology and SystematicsAnnual Reviews · United States | 9.81Q1 | 15.48 6.87 up from 2003 | 44 | — | — | ||
3CellCell Press · United States | 8.53Q1 | 24.78 0.41 down from 2003 | 1,216 | 97% | $11,400 | ||
4Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular BiologyAnnual Reviews · United States | 8.40Q1 | 2.50 16.00 down from 2003 | 32 | — | — | ||
5Nature GeneticsNature Portfolio · United States | 6.75Q1 | 18.13 1.21 up from 2003 | 1,046 | 21% | $12,690 | ||
6NatureNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.74Q1 | 11.14 0.37 up from 2003 | 8,843 | 14% | $12,690 | ||
7Annual Review of Biophysics and Biomolecular StructureAnnual Reviews · United States | 5.70Q1 | 15.83 1.91 up from 2003 | 60 | 12% | — | ||
8Progress in NeurobiologyElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.60Q1 | 14.30 0.16 down from 2003 | 157 | 4% | $5,190 | ||
9Progress in Lipid ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.42Q1 | 9.92 1.86 down from 2003 | 68 | 0% | $5,530 | ||
10Nature ImmunologyNature Portfolio · United States | 5.39Q1 | 17.17 0.65 up from 2003 | 754 | 15% | $12,690 | ||
11The Journal of Experimental MedicineRockefeller University Press · United States | 4.97Q1 | 15.67 0.13 down from 2003 | 1,024 | 99% | — | ||
12ImmunityCell Press · United States | 4.94Q1 | 16.81 0.59 down from 2003 | 498 | 97% | $10,400 | ||
13Mind & LanguageWiley · United Kingdom | 4.89Q1 | 5.13 2.61 up from 2003 | 92 | 8% | $4,150 | ||
14Molecular CellElsevier BV · United States | 4.82Q1 | 14.20 0.33 down from 2003 | 970 | 98% | $10,400 | ||
15Nature Cell BiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.71Q1 | 13.43 0.61 down from 2003 | 803 | 16% | $12,690 | ||
16NeuronCell Press · United States | 4.70Q1 | 13.78 0.61 up from 2003 | 1,248 | 97% | $10,400 | ||
17ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 4.65Q1 | 6.90 0.19 up from 2003 | 13,879 | 4% | — | ||
18Psychological ReviewAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 4.57Q1 | 4.47 1.35 down from 2003 | 213 | 19% | — | ||
19Nature BiotechnologyNature Portfolio · United States | 4.46Q1 | 8.95 1.15 up from 2003 | 1,121 | 16% | $12,690 | ||
20Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Sciences · United States | 4.38Q1 | 11.26 0.70 up from 2003 | 8,828 | 97% | — | ||
21Ecology LettersWiley · United Kingdom | 4.36Q1 | 5.08 0.23 up from 2003 | 368 | 9% | $5,300 | ||
22The Plant CellOxford University Press · United States | 4.36Q1 | 12.56 4.86 up from 2003 | 1,038 | 96% | $4,934 | ||
23Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Reviews on CancerElsevier BV · Netherlands | 4.29Q1 | 14.43 5.25 up from 2003 | 65 | 3% | $5,070 | ||
24Cognitive PsychologyElsevier BV · United States | 4.27Q1 | 3.08 2.66 down from 2003 | 95 | 5% | $3,570 | ||
25The American NaturalistUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 4.26Q1 | 5.31 0.77 up from 2003 | 461 | 13% | — | ||
26Nature NeuroscienceNature Portfolio · United States | 4.20Q1 | 10.40 0.28 down from 2003 | 860 | 19% | $12,690 | ||
27FEMS Microbiology ReviewsOAOxford University Press · Netherlands | 4.20Q1 | 7.10 0.23 up from 2003 | 168 | 38% | $3,297 | ||
28Recent Progress in Hormone ResearchOAEndocrine Society · United States | 4.19Q1 | 9.42 0.25 down from 2003 | 50 | 100% | — | ||
29The American Journal of Human GeneticsElsevier BV · United States | 4.12Q1 | 10.67 0.08 down from 2003 | 1,137 | 90% | $5,150 | ||
30Frontiers in NeuroendocrinologyElsevier BV · United States | 3.94Q1 | 11.38 3.46 up from 2003 | 41 | 0% | $4,800 | ||
31The EMBO JournalOASpringer Nature · Germany | 3.93Q1 | 11.63 0.13 up from 2003 | 2,044 | 92% | $7,990 | ||
32CognitionElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.88Q1 | 4.29 1.73 down from 2003 | 252 | 8% | $3,910 | ||
33Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesRoyal Society · United Kingdom | 3.79Q1 | 5.24 0.67 up from 2003 | 1,138 | 99% | — | ||
34The Plant JournalWiley · United Kingdom | 3.69Q1 | 7.51 0.95 up from 2003 | 895 | 56% | $5,450 | ||
35Developmental CellElsevier BV · United States | 3.67Q1 | 11.82 0.47 down from 2003 | 507 | 98% | $10,400 | ||
36Journal of Rural StudiesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 3.64Q1 | 1.81 0.63 up from 2003 | 159 | 0% | $4,090 | ||
37Sociologia RuralisWiley · Netherlands | 3.63Q1 | 2.24 0.24 up from 2003 | 74 | 30% | $3,920 | ||
38Annual Review of ImmunologyAnnual Reviews · United States | 3.57Q1 | 57.11 0.76 up from 2003 | 80 | 0% | — | ||
39Journal of BiologyOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 3.52Q1 | 9.23 0.10 down from 2003 | 35 | 100% | $2,686 | ||
40PLoS BiologyOAPublic Library of Science · United States | 3.51Q1 | 7.58no 2003 value | 95 | 100% | $5,500 | — | |
41Psychological ScienceSAGE Publishing · United States | 3.51Q1 | 4.79 0.37 up from 2003 | 323 | 8% | $3,900 | ||
42Journal of Clinical InvestigationOAAmerican Society for Clinical Investigation · United States | 3.45Q1 | 8.88 0.35 up from 2003 | 2,907 | 81% | $5,200 | ||
43Medicinal Research ReviewsWiley · United States | 3.42Q1 | 7.60 0.77 down from 2003 | 90 | 8% | $4,980 | ||
44Circulation ResearchLippincott Williams & Wilkins · United States | 3.37Q1 | 9.31 0.29 down from 2003 | 1,201 | 48% | — | ||
45Pharmacology & TherapeuticsElsevier BV · United States | 3.35Q1 | 7.36 0.18 up from 2003 | 199 | 2% | $5,660 | ||
46Molecular Plant-Microbe InteractionsOAAmerican Phytopathological Society · United States | 3.33Q1 | 4.91 0.68 up from 2003 | 435 | 57% | $3,000 | ||
47Neuroscience & Biobehavioral ReviewsElsevier BV · United States | 3.27Q1 | 7.70 1.00 up from 2003 | 184 | 9% | $4,860 | ||
48Behavioral EcologyOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.25Q1 | 3.76 0.90 up from 2003 | 356 | 37% | $3,906 | ||
49Journal of Experimental Psychology GeneralAmerican Psychological Association | 3.21Q1 | 3.26 0.99 down from 2003 | 201 | 10% | — | ||
50Human Molecular GeneticsOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.19Q1 | 8.20 1.54 down from 2003 | 1,134 | 26% | $4,390 |
Citations made in 2004. Corpus-wide, 69.4% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
521 additional Life Sciences journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2001–2003, 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: 2004. Publication window: 2001–2003. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 1,731
- Window papers (baseline)
- 854,790 +14.3% from indicator year 2001
- Median OJR
- 0.71 +14.2% from indicator year 2001
- Rising journals (2025)
- 273
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2001–2003 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.