What is considered a good impact factor for a scientific journal?

In today's academic environment, where the principle of "Publish or Perish" determines the success of a researcher, choosing the right scholarly journal with a good impact factor becomes a strategically important step. But what kind of impact factor can be considered "good"? The answer to this question depends on the context - discipline, purpose of publication, and other factors.

What is the Journal Impact Factor?

Impact Factor (IF) is one of the key Web of Science indicators used to assess the impact of a scientific journal. It reflects the average number of citations of articles published in the journal over the last two years.

This indicator is published in the annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) published by Clarivate Analytics. A high impact factor usually indicates a high level of recognition of a journal in the international scientific community.

How to calculate a journal's Impact Factor?

A journal's IF for year n = number of citations of articles in the previous two years / total number of given articles in the previous two years.

For example, if a journal for 2023 had 500 citations for articles published in 2022 and 2021, and the total number of these articles is 100, the journal's impact factor would be 5.0.

Factors affecting the impact factor are.

• type of scientific literature: review articles and clinical trials tend to receive more citations than review articles
• type of research: interdisciplinary and original research tends to attract more attention and therefore receive more citations
• field of knowledge: research in the natural and technical sciences has traditionally been more sought after than publications in the humanities and social sciences, which also affects impact factors.

Why is the impact factor important?

The impact factor is an important indicator that demonstrates the significance and impact of published research. This indicator serves as a kind of quality marker in the field of publishing.

Journals with a high impact factor play a key role in scholarly communication, attracting the attention of researchers, academic institutions, funding agencies, professionals from various fields and even the general public.

What is a good Impact Factor for a journal?

A good impact factor for a scholarly journal is one that is above average in a particular field of science. However, the concept of "good" varies depending on the discipline, the journal's goals, and its audience.

In different scientific fields and their subcategories, the standard for a good impact factor can vary considerably. In disciplines where journals with high impact factors exist, the bar for determining a "good" impact factor value tends to be higher. In contrast, in areas with traditionally lower impact factors, the standard may be lower.

For example, a good impact factor for different disciplines:

• for biomedicine - above 5
• for physics and chemistry - about 3-5
• for social sciences - 2 and above.

What is an average Impact Factor?

The average impact factor is an average of the impact factors of journals in a particular scientific field or among all journals included in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) ranking. The average also depends on the field of knowledge in which the journal specializes. Depending on the field of science, the average IF varies from 2.8 to 3.9 according to Journal Citation Reports (JCR) for 2023.

What is a bad Impact Factor?

"Bad" impact factor refers to the low citation rate of articles in a journal, which can occur for a number of reasons:

• the journal publishes articles that are not widely recognized in the scientific community or in related fields
• the publication is not very influential in its field, which may affect its reputation and scientometric indicators
• the journal publishes articles on narrowly focused topics that do not resonate widely.

A poor impact factor does not always mean that a journal is of poor quality - it is just a statistic that reflects citation and impact. In some fields, scientific journals can have a low impact factor but still publish important papers.

Depending on the field of science, the impact factor of a journal can vary greatly, which is influenced by the demand for research in a particular field. For example, journals publishing scientific papers on the topic of medicine are cited much more often than publications specializing in research in the humanities.

In addition, in a number of disciplines it takes much longer to disseminate and cite new results. For this reason, comparison of IF journals of different subject categories will not give an objective picture. It is more correct to make a comparison among publications within the same category.

Top 10 most influential journals according to Journal Citation Reports for 2023

An article published in a journal included in the WoS database has a greater chance of being cited and contributing to the publication's impact factor. If you need publication in Web of Science in a journal with a high impact factor, our experts will help you to find a suitable publication. We guarantee support up to the stage of article indexing in the WoS database, which is enshrined in a formal contract with each client. Leave your contact details in the form below and we will contact you shortly for a detailed consultation.