Journal rankings · indicator year 2020
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Domain ranking · 2020
Life Sciences journal rankings 2020
3,015 ranked journals · Domain
Life Sciences has 3,015 ranked journals in 2020. The median journal has an OJR of 0.81, below the world average of 1.00, up 0.01 on 2019; Q1 starts at OJR 1.32. The top three are Cell, Nature Genetics, and Pharmacological Reviews.
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.
Fields in Life Sciences (5)
Up to All journals3,015 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1CellCell Press · United States | 10.03Q1 | 33.91 1.85 up from 2019 | 1,740 | 99% | $11,400 | ||
2Nature GeneticsNature Portfolio · United States | 8.88Q1 | 34.47 10.07 up from 2019 | 703 | 79% | $12,690 | ||
3Pharmacological ReviewsAmerican Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics · United States | 7.86Q1 | 25.76 3.07 up from 2019 | 69 | 76% | $4,500 | ||
4Nature NeuroscienceNature Portfolio · United States | 7.10Q1 | 22.74 3.64 up from 2019 | 682 | 70% | $12,690 | ||
5Ethnobotany Research and ApplicationsOAUniversity of Hawaii Press · United States | 6.99Q1 | 11.30 10.80 up from 2019 | 54 | 100% | — | ||
6NatureNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 6.77Q1 | 17.34 1.93 up from 2019 | 8,876 | 35% | $12,690 | ||
7FEMS Microbiology ReviewsOAOxford University Press · Netherlands | 6.61Q1 | 17.85 1.64 up from 2019 | 131 | 65% | $3,297 | ||
8Nature BiotechnologyNature Portfolio · United States | 6.41Q1 | 25.99 10.87 up from 2019 | 891 | 46% | $12,690 | ||
9Fungal DiversitySpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 6.36Q1 | 20.18 5.04 up from 2019 | 54 | 58% | $3,490 | ||
10Molecular CancerOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 6.21Q1 | 30.59 13.59 up from 2019 | 530 | 100% | $5,090 | ||
11Cell MetabolismCell Press · United States | 6.16Q1 | 20.99 3.82 up from 2019 | 700 | 97% | $10,400 | ||
12The Journal of Peasant StudiesTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 6.09Q1 | 3.83 2.37 down from 2019 | 255 | 28% | — | ||
13Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food SafetyWiley · United States | 5.75Q1 | 15.02 3.02 up from 2019 | 250 | 24% | $5,000 | ||
14MicrobiomeOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 5.66Q1 | 18.26 3.19 up from 2019 | 529 | 100% | $4,990 | ||
15ImmunityCell Press · United States | 5.64Q1 | 22.30 5.62 up from 2019 | 753 | 97% | $10,400 | ||
16Current Directions in Psychological ScienceSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 5.62Q1 | 10.57 2.33 up from 2019 | 259 | 62% | $3,900 | ||
17Science AdvancesOAAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 5.59Q1 | 15.87 0.07 up from 2019 | 2,921 | 100% | $4,500 | ||
18Nature Human BehaviourNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.59Q1 | 8.64 0.44 up from 2019 | 681 | 55% | $12,690 | ||
19Trends in Food Science & TechnologyElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.52Q1 | 14.35 1.66 up from 2019 | 789 | 28% | $5,440 | ||
20Nature Cell BiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.43Q1 | 22.12 6.50 up from 2019 | 543 | 59% | $12,690 | ||
21Signal Transduction and Targeted TherapyOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 5.36Q1 | 16.93 0.52 up from 2019 | 131 | 100% | $3,790 | ||
22Journal of Extracellular VesiclesOATaylor & Francis · United States | 5.20Q1 | 24.37 6.78 up from 2019 | 173 | 100% | $4,410 | ||
23Nature MicrobiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.00Q1 | 14.66 1.65 up from 2019 | 706 | 72% | $12,690 | ||
24Nature Ecology & EvolutionNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.99Q1 | 11.68 1.04 up from 2019 | 950 | 59% | $12,690 | ||
25Nature CommunicationsOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.97Q1 | 17.16 2.57 up from 2019 | 15,022 | 100% | $6,990 | ||
26Seminars in ImmunopathologySpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 4.91Q1 | 9.60 1.54 up from 2019 | 152 | 84% | $3,790 | ||
27Studies in MycologyElsevier BV · Netherlands | 4.89Q1 | 17.29 6.41 up from 2019 | 50 | 100% | $1,430 | ||
28Psychological ScienceSAGE Publishing · United States | 4.88Q1 | 10.50 3.33 up from 2019 | 544 | 43% | $3,900 | ||
29Cell Host & MicrobeCell Press · United States | 4.84Q1 | 15.58 3.70 up from 2019 | 604 | 98% | $10,400 | ||
30Nature Reviews Molecular Cell BiologyNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.79Q1 | 39.99 12.37 up from 2019 | 352 | 39% | — | ||
31Bone ResearchOASpringer Nature · China | 4.77Q1 | 16.13 1.63 up from 2019 | 99 | 100% | $3,405 | ||
32Psychological ReviewAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 4.64Q1 | 10.03 0.96 up from 2019 | 130 | 57% | — | ||
33Progress in Lipid ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.62Q1 | 14.63 1.13 down from 2019 | 75 | 56% | $5,530 | ||
34Nature MethodsNature Portfolio · United States | 4.59Q1 | 13.10 0.16 down from 2019 | 1,139 | 49% | $12,690 | ||
35Ecology LettersWiley · United Kingdom | 4.52Q1 | 9.33 0.76 down from 2019 | 555 | 56% | $5,300 | ||
36Nature Biomedical EngineeringNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.35Q1 | 15.83 4.11 up from 2019 | 440 | 58% | $12,690 | ||
37Molecular Biology and EvolutionOAOxford University Press · United States | 4.34Q1 | 13.79 3.44 up from 2019 | 877 | 93% | $3,418 | ||
38Systematic BiologyOxford University Press · United States | 4.24Q1 | 13.83 4.32 up from 2019 | 260 | 69% | $2,166 | ||
39Nature ProtocolsNature Portfolio · United States | 4.24Q1 | 15.09 2.85 up from 2019 | 445 | 57% | — | ||
40NeuronCell Press · United States | 4.23Q1 | 13.44 0.67 up from 2019 | 1,560 | 98% | $10,400 | ||
41Biotechnology AdvancesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.20Q1 | 15.38 3.87 up from 2019 | 391 | 39% | $5,460 | ||
42Circulation ResearchLippincott Williams & Wilkins · United States | 4.14Q1 | 12.34 1.03 up from 2019 | 887 | 44% | — | ||
43Cell stem cellElsevier BV · United States | 4.12Q1 | 15.34 2.48 up from 2019 | 601 | 100% | $10,400 | ||
44Science Translational MedicineAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · United States | 4.12Q1 | 12.36 1.23 up from 2019 | 1,242 | 46% | — | ||
45Nature ImmunologyNature Portfolio · United States | 4.11Q1 | 15.17 3.04 up from 2019 | 693 | 57% | $12,690 | ||
46Drug Resistance UpdatesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.09Q1 | 17.35 2.60 up from 2019 | 56 | 54% | $5,410 | ||
47ACS Central ScienceOAAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 4.09Q1 | 14.77 0.91 up from 2019 | 518 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
48Journal of Rural StudiesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 4.07Q1 | 4.98 0.54 up from 2019 | 574 | 45% | $4,090 | ||
49Journal of Agrarian ChangeWiley · United Kingdom | 4.03Q1 | 3.09 0.07 down from 2019 | 112 | 38% | $3,820 | ||
50Genome biologyOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 4.01Q1 | 15.18 3.15 up from 2019 | 733 | 100% | $5,490 |
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.
916 additional Life Sciences 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
- 3,015
- Window papers (baseline)
- 1,731,463 +4.8% from indicator year 2017
- Median OJR
- 0.814 -0.4% from indicator year 2017
- Rising journals (2025)
- 273
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 | 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.