Journal rankings · indicator year 2020
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Field ranking · 2020
Chemistry journal rankings 2020
234 ranked journals · Field in Physical Sciences
Chemistry has 234 ranked journals in 2020. The median journal has an OJR of 0.43, below the world average of 1.00, unchanged on 2019; Q1 starts at OJR 0.76. The top three are Accounts of Chemical Research, Nature Chemistry, and Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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.
Subfields in Chemistry (6)
Up to Physical Sciences234 ranked journals
Filters
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Accounts of Chemical ResearchAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 6.17Q1 | 24.52 2.84 up from 2019 | 989 | 33% | $4,500 | ||
2Nature ChemistryNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.02Q1 | 17.79 0.41 up from 2019 | 595 | 44% | $12,690 | ||
3Journal of the American Chemical SocietyAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 4.10Q1 | 16.45 0.08 up from 2019 | 7,618 | 42% | $4,500 | ||
4ChemElsevier BV · United States | 3.87Q1 | 14.99 1.74 up from 2019 | 766 | 100% | $9,350 | ||
5Progress in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance SpectroscopyElsevier BV · Netherlands | 3.68Q1 | 10.00 0.94 down from 2019 | 62 | 64% | $4,170 | ||
6Angewandte Chemie International EditionWiley · Germany | 3.39Q1 | 14.20 1.34 up from 2019 | 10,050 | 44% | $5,510 | ||
7Mass Spectrometry ReviewsWiley · United States | 3.00Q1 | 7.86 0.74 up from 2019 | 77 | 38% | $5,230 | ||
8ACS CatalysisAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 2.98Q1 | 13.56 0.28 up from 2019 | 3,428 | 33% | $4,500 | ||
9Chemical ScienceOARoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 2.53Q1 | 9.79 0.14 up from 2019 | 3,262 | 100% | — | ||
10Green ChemistryRoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 2.47Q1 | 10.17 1.82 up from 2019 | 2,063 | 28% | — | ||
11CCS ChemistryOAChinese Chemical Society · China | 2.39Q1 | 8.61no 2019 value | 62 | 100% | — | — | |
12Topics in Current ChemistrySpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 2.29Q1 | 9.47 0.82 up from 2019 | 175 | 28% | $4,590 | ||
13ACS Macro LettersAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.80Q1 | 7.02 0.25 up from 2019 | 806 | 33% | $4,500 | ||
14Journal of Food Composition and AnalysisElsevier BV · United States | 1.70Q1 | 4.57 0.64 up from 2019 | 596 | 27% | $3,450 | ||
15Russian Chemical ReviewsOAInstitute of Physics · Russia | 1.66Q1 | 5.97 0.66 up from 2019 | 132 | 100% | — | ||
16The Chemical RecordWiley · United States | 1.64Q1 | 6.77 1.44 up from 2019 | 377 | 31% | $4,710 | ||
17Applied Spectroscopy ReviewsTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.62Q1 | 5.47 0.76 up from 2019 | 119 | 15% | — | ||
18Organic LettersAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.52Q1 | 5.93 0.76 down from 2019 | 5,688 | 19% | $4,500 | ||
19Chemical CommunicationsRoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 1.51Q1 | 6.21 0.05 down from 2019 | 9,162 | 22% | — | ||
20Nature Reviews ChemistryNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 1.47Q1 | 16.92 0.73 down from 2019 | 293 | 22% | — | ||
21Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory SystemsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.44Q1 | 4.04 0.21 up from 2019 | 509 | 23% | $3,970 | ||
22Advanced Synthesis & CatalysisWiley · Germany | 1.41Q1 | 5.35 0.71 down from 2019 | 1,865 | 24% | $4,650 | ||
23Chemistry Central JournalOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 1.40Q1 | 4.60 1.05 up from 2019 | 283 | — | $2,040 | ||
24Clinical ProteomicsOABioMed Central · United States | 1.34Q1 | 4.51 1.34 up from 2019 | 126 | 100% | $2,490 | ||
25Organic Chemistry FrontiersRoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 1.31Q1 | 4.90 0.21 down from 2019 | 1,379 | 11% | — | ||
26Polymer ChemistryRoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 1.30Q1 | 5.57 1.12 up from 2019 | 2,272 | 22% | — | ||
27Expert Review of ProteomicsTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.27Q1 | 4.40 0.52 up from 2019 | 228 | 41% | — | ||
28Journal of Proteome ResearchAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.23Q1 | 4.45no change | 1,194 | 45% | $4,500 | ||
29Microporous and Mesoporous MaterialsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.22Q1 | 5.11 0.32 up from 2019 | 1,888 | 21% | $3,970 | ||
30Journal of Chromatography AElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.20Q1 | 4.39 0.07 down from 2019 | 2,570 | 21% | $4,040 | ||
31Bulletin of the Chemical Society of JapanOxford University Press · Japan | 1.17Q1 | 5.58 1.10 up from 2019 | 593 | 16% | $2,040 | ||
32Chemistry - A European JournalWiley · Germany | 1.16Q1 | 4.71 0.04 up from 2019 | 7,530 | 53% | $4,640 | ||
33Food Analytical MethodsSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.13Q1 | 3.29 0.36 up from 2019 | 895 | 12% | $2,490 | ||
34The Journal of Organic ChemistryAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.11Q1 | 4.13 0.58 down from 2019 | 4,684 | 20% | $4,500 | ||
35Journal of Saudi Chemical SocietyOAElsevier BV · Saudi Arabia | 1.10Q1 | 4.59 1.53 up from 2019 | 244 | 100% | $2,490 | ||
36BMC ChemistryOABioMed Central · Switzerland | 1.07Q1 | 3.15no 2019 value | 136 | 100% | $2,990 | ||
37Chemistry - An Asian JournalWiley · Germany | 1.06Q1 | 4.53 0.54 up from 2019 | 1,583 | 17% | $4,520 | ||
38Trends in ChemistryElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.04Q1 | 14.55no 2019 value | 133 | 45% | $7,030 | — | |
39Future Medicinal ChemistryFuture Science Ltd · United Kingdom | 1.01Q1 | 3.39 0.10 up from 2019 | 583 | 32% | — | ||
40OrganometallicsAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.99Q1 | 4.07 0.05 up from 2019 | 1,664 | 23% | $4,500 | ||
41Organic & Biomolecular ChemistryRoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 0.98Q1 | 3.82 0.28 up from 2019 | 3,516 | 16% | — | ||
42ACS Combinatorial ScienceAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.97Q1 | 3.79 0.14 up from 2019 | 244 | 38% | $4,500 | ||
43Journal of ChemometricsWiley · United Kingdom | 0.92Q1 | 2.42 0.56 up from 2019 | 306 | 42% | $3,710 | ||
44Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference DataAmerican Institute of Physics · United States | 0.90Q1 | 2.90 0.24 down from 2019 | 55 | 64% | — | ||
45Journal of Separation ScienceWiley · Germany | 0.88Q1 | 3.00 0.04 down from 2019 | 1,402 | 14% | $4,030 | ||
46Journal of the American Society for Mass SpectrometryAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.88Q1 | 2.98 0.31 down from 2019 | 804 | 36% | $4,500 | ||
47European Journal of Lipid Science and TechnologyWiley · Germany | 0.85Q1 | 2.64 0.57 up from 2019 | 554 | 35% | $4,020 | ||
48Organic Process Research & DevelopmentAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.85Q1 | 3.38 0.14 up from 2019 | 751 | 23% | $4,500 | ||
49Beilstein Journal of Organic ChemistryOABeilstein Institute for the Advancement of Chemical Sciences · Germany | 0.85Q1 | 3.04 0.02 down from 2019 | 870 | 100% | — | ||
50Journal of Magnetic ResonanceElsevier BV · United States | 0.84Q1 | 2.59 0.18 up from 2019 | 649 | 49% | $3,500 |
Subfields of Chemistry, compared.
- Organic Chemistry150
- Analytical Chemistry35
- Spectroscopy27
- Inorganic Chemistry16
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry5
- Electrochemistry1
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.
54 additional Chemistry 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
- 234
- Window papers (baseline)
- 230,533 -13.1% from indicator year 2017
- Median OJR
- 0.434 -12.4% from indicator year 2017
- Rising journals (2025)
- 25Comparison-group list (25)
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 | 137 | 138 | 149 | 153 | 155 | 159 | 159 | 160 | 166 | 173 | 176 | 181 | 195 | 215 | 221 | 228 | 235 | 232 | 231 | 233 | 234 | 237 | 235 | 239 | 232 | 232 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 172,482 | 176,080 | 179,077 | 183,694 | 189,084 | 197,327 | 206,346 | 215,895 | 224,057 | 230,433 | 236,603 | 243,807 | 254,287 | 261,691 | 269,998 | 272,767 | 273,338 | 265,414 | 249,893 | 237,248 | 230,533 | 232,668 | 233,225 | 229,202 | 225,643 | 230,176 | |
| Median OJR | 0.620 | 0.638 | 0.61 | 0.60 | 0.66 | 0.6173 | 0.57 | 0.6170 | 0.654 | 0.618 | 0.635 | 0.622 | 0.649 | 0.544 | 0.541 | 0.56 | 0.505 | 0.49559 | 0.491 | 0.432 | 0.434 | 0.48 | 0.486 | 0.499 | 0.49563 | 0.509 |
| Measure | Category statistic | Eligible population |
|---|---|---|
| Journal self-citation share | Median: 4.3% | 197 journals |
| Retracted papers per 1,000 | Pooled rate: 0.568 per 1,000 | 177 journals |
| Output growth | Median: -11.4% | 212 journals |
| Open access share | Median: 41.5% | 232 journals |
| Listed APC (USD) | Median including $0 listed prices: $3,610 | 141 ranked journals with a known listed price, including $0 listed prices |
| International collaboration share | Median: 20.0% | 228 journals |
| Review share | Median: 0.0% | 232 journals |
| Articles-only OJR | Median: 0.51 | 232 journals |
| Uncited share | Median: 35.7% | 232 journals |
| Citation concentration | Median: 44.6% | 231 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.