Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Global ranking · 2021
Journal rankings 2021
21,674 ranked journals in 4 domains, 26 fields and 252 subfields
This release ranks 21,674 journals for 2021. The median journal has an OJR of 0.79, below the world average of 1.00, down 0.03 on 2020; Q1 starts at OJR 1.40. 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: 2021. 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 2018–2020, the window the 2021 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 subfields21,674 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 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 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 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1CA A Cancer Journal for CliniciansOAWiley · United States | 120.83Q1 | 294.31 340.20 down from 2020 | 81 | 100% | $4,330 | ||
2MMWR Surveillance SummariesOACenters for Disease Control and Prevention · United States | 31.11Q1 | 67.38 16.83 down from 2020 | 37 | 100% | — | ||
3Reviews of Modern PhysicsAmerican Physical Society · United States | 21.03Q1 | 54.80 5.28 down from 2020 | 114 | 85% | — | ||
4Satellite NavigationOASpringer Nature · Singapore | 18.14Q1 | 14.47no 2020 value | 30 | 100% | $1,670 | — | |
5The Quarterly Journal of EconomicsOxford University Press · United States | 16.37Q1 | 19.54 0.55 up from 2020 | 121 | 58% | $7,619 | ||
6New England Journal of MedicineMassachusetts Medical Society · United States | 16.06Q1 | 61.78 29.09 up from 2020 | 3,414 | 42% | — | ||
7Academy of Management AnnalsRoutledge · United States | 15.60Q1 | 21.47 3.23 up from 2020 | 81 | 30% | — | ||
8Turkic LanguagesHarrassowitz Publishing House · Germany | 15.38Q1 | 8.33 7.90 up from 2020 | 39 | 2% | — | ||
9The LancetElsevier BV · Netherlands | 15.01Q1 | 57.61 32.61 up from 2020 | 3,001 | 65% | $7,890 | ||
10IEEE Communications Surveys & TutorialsInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers · United States | 14.50Q1 | 45.63 9.88 up from 2020 | 317 | 60% | $2,645 | ||
11International SecurityThe MIT Press · United States | 13.60Q1 | 11.94 2.90 up from 2020 | 77 | 42% | — | ||
12International Journal of Information ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 13.00Q1 | 27.03 10.68 up from 2020 | 514 | 48% | $3,990 | ||
13The Review of Asset Pricing StudiesOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 12.66Q1 | 21.94 19.19 up from 2020 | 44 | 40% | $4,028 | ||
14The Journal of Economic PerspectivesOAAmerican Economic Association · United States | 12.55Q1 | 15.58 2.65 up from 2020 | 139 | 100% | — | ||
15Nature MedicineNature Portfolio · United States | 12.40Q1 | 60.90 22.45 up from 2020 | 934 | 57% | $12,690 | ||
16California Management ReviewSAGE Publishing · United States | 12.29Q1 | 20.36 2.80 up from 2020 | 79 | 20% | $3,900 | ||
17American Sociological ReviewSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 12.13Q1 | 18.22 3.65 up from 2020 | 128 | 35% | $3,900 | ||
18Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological ScienceOASAGE Publishing · United States | 12.11Q1 | 23.37 2.97 down from 2020 | 106 | 100% | $2,000 | ||
19Tourism GeographiesTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 11.90Q1 | 16.04 12.01 up from 2020 | 225 | 29% | — | ||
20Government Information QuarterlyElsevier BV · United States | 11.84Q1 | 13.35 3.09 up from 2020 | 211 | 52% | $4,360 | ||
21CellCell Press · United States | 11.14Q1 | 54.97 21.06 up from 2020 | 1,786 | 100% | $11,400 | ||
22Journal of Educational Technology SystemsSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 11.08Q1 | 26.80 24.50 up from 2020 | 81 | 20% | $3,400 | ||
23The Journal of Strategic Information SystemsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 11.03Q1 | 21.43 7.40 up from 2020 | 66 | 35% | $4,160 | ||
24American Economic ReviewAmerican Economic Association · United States | 10.66Q1 | 14.98 1.45 up from 2020 | 381 | 42% | — | ||
25The Review of Corporate Finance StudiesOxford University Press · United States | 10.59Q1 | 14.80 12.35 up from 2020 | 51 | 43% | $4,028 | ||
26Reviews of GeophysicsWiley · United States | 10.50Q1 | 35.00 10.00 up from 2020 | 79 | 70% | $3,880 | ||
27Journal of International Business PolicyPalgrave Macmillan · United Kingdom | 10.46Q1 | 10.95 0.16 down from 2020 | 70 | 84% | $3,190 | ||
| 10.46Q1 | 14.80 13.07 up from 2020 | 47 | 100% | — | |||
29Contemporary Security PolicyTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 10.41Q1 | 12.83 10.13 up from 2020 | 77 | 58% | — | ||
30Progress in Energy and Combustion ScienceElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 10.23Q1 | 35.32 0.13 up from 2020 | 89 | 55% | $6,990 | ||
31The Internet and Higher EducationElsevier BV · United States | 10.10Q1 | 14.31 2.77 up from 2020 | 72 | 31% | $4,120 | ||
32International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher EducationOASpringer Nature · Switzerland | 9.84Q1 | 16.03 5.22 up from 2020 | 148 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
33Clinical Microbiology ReviewsAmerican Society for Microbiology · United States | 9.83Q1 | 40.53 10.15 up from 2020 | 104 | 100% | — | ||
34Educational PsychologistRoutledge · United States | 9.78Q1 | 11.80 2.49 down from 2020 | 61 | 32% | — | ||
35American Political Science ReviewCambridge University Press · United States | 9.66Q1 | 8.88 0.59 down from 2020 | 267 | 62% | $3,550 | ||
36Progress in Materials ScienceElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 9.59Q1 | 37.10 1.62 up from 2020 | 195 | 31% | $6,040 | ||
37Physics ReportsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.57Q1 | 26.74 1.51 up from 2020 | 162 | 39% | $6,240 | ||
38Journal of Second Language WritingElsevier BV · United States | 9.56Q1 | 6.13 0.98 up from 2020 | 103 | 13% | $3,830 | ||
39Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.52Q1 | 13.65 1.91 up from 2020 | 605 | 45% | $4,690 | ||
40Policy and SocietyOAElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 9.48Q1 | 14.19 8.83 up from 2020 | 85 | 100% | $1,634 | ||
41Research on Language and Social InteractionTaylor & Francis · United States | 9.31Q1 | 5.35 4.02 down from 2020 | 70 | 45% | — | ||
42European Business ReviewEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 9.29Q1 | 4.44 6.69 down from 2020 | 154 | 38% | — | ||
43Journal of Business VenturingElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.21Q1 | 11.87 0.85 down from 2020 | 158 | 37% | $4,130 | ||
44European Journal of Teacher EducationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 9.21Q1 | 10.96 7.77 up from 2020 | 190 | 53% | — | ||
45Journal of Interactive MarketingSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.20Q1 | 12.51 2.93 up from 2020 | 105 | 39% | $5,400 | ||
46Review of Research in EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.18Q1 | 12.31 2.45 up from 2020 | 45 | 31% | $2,500 | ||
47Nature GeneticsNature Portfolio · United States | 9.11Q1 | 34.74 0.27 up from 2020 | 602 | 71% | $12,690 | ||
48Materials Science and Engineering R ReportsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.06Q1 | 30.11 4.51 down from 2020 | 59 | 49% | $6,150 | ||
49Pedagogical ResearchOALectito Journals · United Kingdom | 8.89Q1 | 17.08 16.08 up from 2020 | 75 | 100% | — | ||
50Endocrine ReviewsOxford University Press · United States | 8.84Q1 | 25.65 2.86 up from 2020 | 133 | 91% | $3,750 |
All 26 fields, compared. Choose a field to open its ranking.
- MedicineHealth Sciences4,639
- Social SciencesSocial Sciences3,141
- EngineeringPhysical Sciences2,428
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular BiologyLife Sciences1,339
- Computer SciencePhysical Sciences1,134
- Agricultural and Biological SciencesLife Sciences1,117
- PsychologySocial Sciences1,032
- Environmental SciencePhysical Sciences945
- Economics, Econometrics and FinanceSocial Sciences851
- Business, Management and AccountingSocial Sciences728
- Health ProfessionsHealth Sciences612
- MathematicsPhysical Sciences600
- Arts and HumanitiesSocial Sciences518
- Materials SciencePhysical Sciences473
- Earth and Planetary SciencesPhysical Sciences402
- Physics and AstronomyPhysical Sciences379
- NeuroscienceLife Sciences344
- ChemistryPhysical Sciences237
- Decision SciencesSocial Sciences188
- DentistryHealth Sciences179
- Immunology and MicrobiologyLife Sciences128
- Pharmacology, Toxicology and PharmaceuticsLife Sciences72
- VeterinaryHealth Sciences69
- NursingHealth Sciences64
- EnergyPhysical Sciences41
- Chemical EngineeringPhysical Sciences14
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
5,952 additional journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, 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: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 21,674
- Window papers (baseline)
- 14,325,423 +5.9% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 0.794 -3.8% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 1,582
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 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.