Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is an annual publication by Clarivate. It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science Core Collection. It provides information about academic journals in the natural and social sciences, including impact factors. JCR was originally published as a part of the Science Citation Index. Currently, the JCR, as a distinct service, is based on citations compiled from the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index. As of the 2023 edition, journals from the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and the Emerging Sources Citation Index have also been included.

Basic journal information

The information given for each journal includes:

Citation information

There are separate editions for the sciences and the social sciences; the 2013 science edition includes 8,411 journals, and the 2012 social science edition contains 3,016 titles. The issue for each year is published the following year after the citations for the year have been published and the information processed. The publication is available online (JCR on the Web), or in CD format (JCR on CD-ROM); it was originally published in print, with the detailed tables on microfiche. In general, various universities, administrative centers and ministries in charge of higher education make their evaluations of university professors and other researchers on the number and quality of articles published in journals indexed in the JCR.

Release schedule

In recent years, it has often been released in mid-June. The 2017 Journal Citation Reports, based on 2016 data, was released on June 14, 2017.

Integrations

In April 2020, Journal Citation Reports included a beta for open access data, which uses Unpaywall data. It officially left the beta phase with the release of the 2020 JCR in June 2020.

Impact factor

Citations

Sources