''Nature Communications'' is a
peer-reviewed,
open access,
scientific journal published by
Nature Portfolio
Nature Portfolio (formerly known as Nature Publishing Group and Nature Research) is a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines, online databases, and services in sc ...
since 2010. It is a multidisciplinary journal and it covers the
natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
, including
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
chemistry,
earth sciences
Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...
,
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, and
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
. The journal has editorial offices in London, Berlin, New York City, and Shanghai.
The founding
editor-in-chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
was Lesley Anson, followed by
Joerg Heber,
Magdalena Skipper, and
Elisa De Ranieri. As of 2022, the editors are
Nathalie Le Bot for health and clinical sciences, Stephane Larochelle for biological sciences, Enda Bergin for chemistry and biotechnology, and Prabhjot Saini for physics and earth sciences.
Starting October 2014, the journal only accepted submissions from authors willing to pay an
article processing charge. Until the end of 2015, part of the published submissions were only available to subscribers. In January 2016, all content became freely accessible.
Starting from 2017, the journal offers a deposition service to authors for
preprints of articles "under consideration" as part of the submission process.
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in:
According to the ''
Journal Citation Reports
''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collec ...
'', the journal has a 2021
impact factor
The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ...
of 17.690.
Subjournals
In 2017, the creation of three "subjournals" under the ''Communications'' brand was announced: ''
Communications Biology'',
''
Communications Chemistry'',
and ''
Communications Physics''.
In 2020, several additional ''Communications'' journals were established: ''Communications Materials'' in 2020,
''
Communications Earth & Environment'' in 2020,
''Communications Medicine'' in 2021,
and ''Communications Engineering'' in 2022.
These open-access journals offer a lower publication fee than ''Nature Communications'', reflecting their more specialist remits. Manuscripts rejected by Nature Publishing Group journals can choose to transfer the manuscript together with reviewers' reports to the ''Communications''-branded journals via an automated transfer service.
Alternatively, authors may choose to request a fresh review.
See also
*''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
''
*''
Scientific Reports''
*''
Science Advances
''Science Advances'' is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal established in early 2015 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The journal's scope includes all areas of science, inclu ...
''
References
External links
*
{{Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, state=collapsed
Nature Research academic journals
Multidisciplinary scientific journals
Open access journals
Publications established in 2010
English-language journals
Creative Commons-licensed journals
Continuous journals