Journal rankings · indicator year 2020
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Global ranking · 2020
Journal rankings 2020
21,436 ranked journals in 4 domains, 26 fields and 252 subfields
This release ranks 21,436 journals for 2020. The median journal has an OJR of 0.82, below the world average of 1.00, unchanged on 2019; Q1 starts at OJR 1.46. The top three are CA A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, MMWR Surveillance Summaries, and Reviews of Modern Physics. Small journals can score very high; only journals with at least 30 citable documents are ranked.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2020. 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 2017–2019, the window the 2020 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.
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4 domains · 26 fields · 252 subfields21,436 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 2019. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2017–2019, the window the 2020 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2017–2019 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 2011 to 2020. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1CA A Cancer Journal for CliniciansOAWiley · United States | 127.93Q1 | 634.51 296.90 up from 2019 | 76 | 100% | $4,330 | ||
2MMWR Surveillance SummariesOACenters for Disease Control and Prevention · United States | 26.36Q1 | 84.21 28.09 up from 2019 | 52 | 100% | — | ||
3Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 23.45Q1 | 60.09 10.09 up from 2019 | 121 | 76% | — | ||
4The Quarterly Journal of EconomicsOxford University Press · United States | 21.07Q1 | 18.99 1.34 up from 2019 | 122 | 50% | $7,619 | ||
5The Journal of Economic PerspectivesOAAmerican Economic Association · United States | 19.13Q1 | 12.93 7.15 down from 2019 | 144 | 100% | — | ||
6Academy of Management AnnalsRoutledge · United States | 18.21Q1 | 18.24 0.24 down from 2019 | 90 | 48% | — | ||
7Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological ScienceOASAGE Publishing · United States | 14.64Q1 | 26.33 9.29 up from 2019 | 72 | 92% | $2,000 | ||
8Social Issues and Policy ReviewWiley · United States | 14.16Q1 | 11.13 0.16 up from 2019 | 32 | 50% | $3,800 | ||
9International SecurityThe MIT Press · United States | 14.14Q1 | 9.04 3.33 up from 2019 | 80 | 43% | — | ||
10IEEE Communications Surveys & TutorialsInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers · United States | 13.75Q1 | 35.75 9.62 up from 2019 | 372 | 60% | $2,645 | ||
11American Political Science ReviewCambridge University Press · United States | 13.42Q1 | 9.47 0.97 up from 2019 | 239 | 36% | $3,550 | ||
12New England Journal of MedicineMassachusetts Medical Society · United States | 13.35Q1 | 32.70 3.45 up from 2019 | 3,217 | 42% | — | ||
13Journal of European Public PolicyRoutledge · United Kingdom | 12.96Q1 | 8.38 1.63 up from 2019 | 296 | 67% | — | ||
14Research on Language and Social InteractionTaylor & Francis · United States | 12.87Q1 | 9.37 5.41 up from 2019 | 69 | 67% | — | ||
15American Sociological ReviewSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 12.61Q1 | 14.57 3.77 up from 2019 | 130 | 35% | $3,900 | ||
16Progress in Energy and Combustion ScienceElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 12.29Q1 | 35.19 5.79 up from 2019 | 106 | 27% | $6,990 | ||
17Review of Research in EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 12.26Q1 | 9.87 0.22 down from 2019 | 52 | 59% | $2,500 | ||
18Journal of International Business PolicyPalgrave Macmillan · United Kingdom | 12.06Q1 | 11.11 4.48 down from 2019 | 37 | 67% | $3,190 | ||
19The LancetElsevier BV · Netherlands | 11.97Q1 | 24.99 3.39 up from 2019 | 2,934 | 78% | $7,890 | ||
20American Journal of Political ScienceWiley · United States | 11.96Q1 | 8.64 0.47 up from 2019 | 190 | 34% | $4,100 | ||
21Progress in Materials ScienceElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 11.63Q1 | 35.47 3.64 up from 2019 | 181 | 32% | $6,040 | ||
22Clinical Microbiology ReviewsAmerican Society for Microbiology · United States | 11.40Q1 | 30.38 7.01 up from 2019 | 107 | 95% | — | ||
23Journal of democracyJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 11.39Q1 | 5.97 0.73 up from 2019 | 218 | 22% | — | ||
24Physics ReportsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 11.30Q1 | 25.24 4.45 down from 2019 | 152 | 47% | $6,240 | ||
25Journal of Statistical SoftwareOAFoundation for Open Access Statistics · United States | 10.99Q1 | 8.29 11.23 down from 2019 | 239 | 100% | — | ||
26Reviews of GeophysicsWiley · United States | 10.85Q1 | 25.00 1.54 up from 2019 | 91 | 78% | $3,880 | ||
27Government Information QuarterlyElsevier BV · United States | 10.83Q1 | 10.26 2.25 up from 2019 | 209 | 54% | $4,360 | ||
28Nature MedicineNature Portfolio · United States | 10.65Q1 | 38.45 11.99 up from 2019 | 853 | 58% | $12,690 | ||
29The Internet and Higher EducationElsevier BV · United States | 10.60Q1 | 11.55 0.24 down from 2019 | 72 | 50% | $4,120 | ||
30Educational PsychologistRoutledge · United States | 10.41Q1 | 14.29 4.95 up from 2019 | 54 | 30% | — | ||
31International Journal of Information ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.20Q1 | 16.34 3.98 up from 2019 | 453 | 43% | $3,990 | ||
32Transactions of the Association for Computational LinguisticsOAAssociation for Computational Linguistics | 10.13Q1 | 10.57 12.69 down from 2019 | 130 | 100% | — | ||
33CellCell Press · United States | 10.03Q1 | 33.91 1.85 up from 2019 | 1,740 | 99% | $11,400 | ||
34Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 10.00Q1 | 11.74 2.30 up from 2019 | 668 | 41% | $4,690 | ||
35The Journal of Strategic Information SystemsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.99Q1 | 14.02 6.61 up from 2019 | 72 | 52% | $4,160 | ||
36Swiss Political Science ReviewWiley · United Kingdom | 9.98Q1 | 3.54 1.21 down from 2019 | 84 | 73% | $3,140 | ||
37Modern Language JournalWiley · United States | 9.73Q1 | 6.95 1.37 up from 2019 | 159 | 25% | $3,800 | ||
38Communications of the ACMAssociation for Computing Machinery · United States | 9.63Q1 | 3.64 19.72 down from 2019 | 835 | 24% | — | ||
39ACM SIGKDD Explorations NewsletterAssociation for Computing Machinery · United States | 9.59Q1 | 5.67 13.06 down from 2019 | 32 | 25% | — | ||
40Journal of Business VenturingElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.52Q1 | 12.73 4.13 up from 2019 | 165 | 37% | $4,130 | ||
41European Journal of Political ResearchOAWiley · United Kingdom | 9.45Q1 | 5.94 0.93 up from 2019 | 181 | 73% | $3,550 | ||
42American Economic ReviewAmerican Economic Association · United States | 9.45Q1 | 13.53 5.03 up from 2019 | 524 | 51% | — | ||
43Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social MediaOAPublisher not listed | 9.38Q1 | 4.85 0.33 down from 2019 | 293 | 100% | — | ||
44The Review of International OrganizationsSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 9.37Q1 | 8.89 5.68 up from 2019 | 101 | 59% | $2,990 | ||
45Economic PolicyOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 9.35Q1 | 4.75 1.95 down from 2019 | 55 | 31% | $7,310 | ||
46Progress in Aerospace SciencesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 9.34Q1 | 11.82 2.86 up from 2019 | 124 | 35% | $5,860 | ||
47Sociology of EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.28Q1 | 6.37 0.39 up from 2019 | 61 | 17% | $3,650 | ||
48Journal of Second Language WritingElsevier BV · United States | 9.22Q1 | 5.16 1.93 up from 2019 | 114 | 9% | $3,830 | ||
49Journal of Interactive MarketingSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.19Q1 | 9.58 0.46 up from 2019 | 98 | 48% | $5,400 | ||
50Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and SocietyOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 9.02Q1 | 6.21 1.09 down from 2019 | 88 | 40% | $4,494 |
All 26 fields, compared. Choose a field to open its ranking.
- MedicineHealth Sciences4,543
- Social SciencesSocial Sciences3,056
- EngineeringPhysical Sciences2,389
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular BiologyLife Sciences1,349
- Agricultural and Biological SciencesLife Sciences1,130
- Computer SciencePhysical Sciences1,127
- PsychologySocial Sciences1,032
- Environmental SciencePhysical Sciences926
- Economics, Econometrics and FinanceSocial Sciences845
- Business, Management and AccountingSocial Sciences736
- MathematicsPhysical Sciences602
- Health ProfessionsHealth Sciences601
- Arts and HumanitiesSocial Sciences513
- Materials SciencePhysical Sciences476
- Earth and Planetary SciencesPhysical Sciences401
- Physics and AstronomyPhysical Sciences380
- NeuroscienceLife Sciences332
- ChemistryPhysical Sciences234
- Decision SciencesSocial Sciences185
- DentistryHealth Sciences181
- Immunology and MicrobiologyLife Sciences134
- Pharmacology, Toxicology and PharmaceuticsLife Sciences70
- VeterinaryHealth Sciences69
- NursingHealth Sciences68
- EnergyPhysical Sciences44
- Chemical EngineeringPhysical Sciences13
Journals
Citations made in 2020. Corpus-wide, 86.1% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
6,100 additional journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2017–2019, 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: 2020. Publication window: 2017–2019. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 21,436
- Window papers (baseline)
- 13,565,535 -1.4% from indicator year 2017
- Median OJR
- 0.823 -2.3% from indicator year 2017
- Rising journals (2025)
- 1,582
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2017–2019 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 | 9,334 | 9,882 | 10,465 | 10,963 | 11,336 | 11,787 | 12,241 | 12,896 | 13,532 | 14,190 | 14,881 | 15,682 | 16,548 | 17,494 | 18,331 | 19,108 | 19,793 | 20,381 | 20,896 | 21,252 | 21,436 | 21,674 | 21,881 | 21,925 | 21,772 | 21,493 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 4,957,530 | 5,479,186 | 5,909,824 | 6,400,037 | 6,719,812 | 7,257,868 | 7,834,893 | 8,493,980 | 9,133,243 | 9,844,442 | 10,531,968 | 11,212,660 | 11,823,613 | 12,322,010 | 12,852,915 | 13,340,497 | 13,715,975 | 13,759,987 | 13,523,013 | 13,360,605 | 13,565,535 | 14,325,423 | 15,089,410 | 15,369,095 | 15,403,861 | 15,824,017 | |
| Median OJR | 0.66 | 0.68 | 0.71 | 0.75 | 0.76 | 0.791 | 0.838 | 0.862 | 0.89 | 0.919 | 0.93 | 0.941 | 0.935 | 0.915 | 0.90 | 0.88 | 0.863 | 0.843 | 0.83 | 0.822 | 0.823 | 0.794 | 0.777 | 0.7721 | 0.7719 | 0.784 |
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.