The range of models used to measure the impact of journals and articles is constantly increasing, though most are based on the level of citations. As a signatory to DORA, the Royal Society offers a variety of journal and article-based metrics.
Our four research journals, Proceedings A, Proceedings B, Biology Letters and Interface, are Transformative Journals moving to a fully open access model when 75% of articles are being published open access.
| Journal | OA research articles published in 2021 | Total research articles in 2021 | % of OA in 2021 | Target % of OA for 2022 | Target number of OA research articles for 2022* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biology Letters | 42 | 169 | 25 | 34 | 64 |
| Interface | 132 | 271 | 49 | 54 | 146 |
| Proceedings A | 80 | 293 | 27 | 32 | 95 |
| Proceedings B | 254 | 606 | 42 | 47 | 284 |
* based on the same Total research articles published as in 2021
Transformative Journal: comparison of subscription and OA content: citations, usage and Altmetrics
| Journal | Average number of citations for subscription articles published in 2021 |
Average number of downloads for subscription articles published in 2021 |
Average Altmetric score for subscription articles published in 2021 |
Average number of citations for OA articles published in 2021 |
Average number of downloads for OA articles published in 2021 |
Average Altmetric score for OA articles published in 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biology Letters | 1.0 |
906 |
67 | 0.9 | 2419 | 80 |
| Interface | 1.2 | 630 | 50 | 2.4 | 1497 | 53 |
| Proceedings A | 0.8 | 189 | 7 | 2.0 | 1609 | 43 |
| Proceedings B | 1.9 | 1188 | 69 | 1.7 | 2643 | 81 |
The impact factor is a measure of how often an average article in a journal has been cited. It is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to source items published in that journal during the previous 2 years.
While the impact factor is a relatively easy measure to calculate and understand, it does have some limitations. Given the highly skewed nature of the citation distribution of a journal's articles, the appropriateness of using a mean has been questioned. Also, most journals contain a significant proportion of articles that are never cited. Such articles can be seen as ‘benefiting’ unfairly from the impact factor of the journal in which they appear.
| Journal | 2021 Impact Factor | Rank | 5 Year Impact Factor | Cited Half-Life | Immediacy Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proceedings A | 3.213 |
32nd out of 73 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 3.479 |
20.14 | 0.658 |
| Proceedings B | 5.53 |
19th out of 94 in ‘Biology’ | 6.03 |
9.9 | 1.015 |
| Philosophical Transactions A | 4.019 |
24th out of 73 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 5.037 |
9.6 | 2.106 |
| Philosophical Transactions B | 6.671 |
14th out of 94 in ‘Biology’ | 8.414 |
9.7 | 2.887 |
| Interface | 4.293 |
22nd out of 73 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 5.343 |
6.4 | 0.836 |
| Biology Letters | 3.812 |
30th out of 94 in ‘Biology’ | 4.329 |
7.5 | 0.815 |
| Interface Focus | 4.661 |
22nd out of 94 in ‘Biology’ | 5.338 |
4.8 | 1.96 |
| Open Biology | 7.124 | 56th out of 296 in ‘Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’ | 6.649 | 3.5 | 0.71 |
| Royal Society Open Science | 3.653 | 30th out of 73 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 3.853 |
2.5 | 0.665 |
| Notes and Records | 0.88 | 24th out of 62 in ‘History and Philosophy of Science’ | 0.784 |
The Eigenfactor gives an indication of the overall contribution of the journal, as a whole, to the literature.
It does this using an algorithm similar to that of Google's ‘PageRank’ to count citations into and out of the journal and to weight them according to the ranking of the source or destination. It uses the Thomson Reuters journal dataset and it is intended to measure how likely a journal is to be used or the amount of time a reader will spend reading it. Large journals rank more highly in the Eigenfactor system than small journals (in contrast to the impact factor, which is independent of size).
| Journal | 2020 Eigenfactor | Eigenfactor Rank | Article Influence | Article Influence Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proceedings A | 0.01533 | 15th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 1.094 | 18th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ |
| Proceedings B | 0.06107 | 3rd out of 93 in ‘Biology’ | 2.071 | 10th out of 93 in ‘Biology’ |
| Philosophical Transactions A | 0.0254 | 11th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 1.406 | 15th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ |
| Philosophical Transactions B | 0.05573 | 4th out of 93 in ‘Biology’ | 2.656 | 8th out of 93 in ‘Biology’ |
| Interface | 0.00448 | 12th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 1.513 | 12th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ |
| Biology Letters | 0.01623 | 11th out of 93 in ‘Biology’ | 1.309 | 17th out of 93 in ‘Biology’ |
| Interface Focus | 0.02201 | 27th out of 93 in 'Biology' | 1.237 | 18th out of 93 in ‘Biology’ |
| Open Biology | 0.01028 | 104th out of 297 in ‘Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’ | 1.542 | 59th out of 297 in ‘Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’ |
| Royal Society Open Science | 0.03099 | 13th out of 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ | 0.915 | 21st out 71 in ‘Multidisciplinary Sciences’ |
| Journal | 2020 CiteScore | Scopus Rank | SNIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proceedings A | 4.5 | 22nd out of 378 in ‘Mathematics’ | 1.474 | |
| Proceedings B | 7.5 | 12th out of 209 in ‘Agricultural and Biological Sciences’ | 1.688 | |
| Philosophical Transactions A | 6.9 | 7th out of 378 in ‘Mathematics' | 1.475 | |
| Philosophical Transactions B | 10.9 | 7th out of 209 in ‘Agricultural and Biological Sciences’ | 1.914 |
|
| Interface | 6.6 | 17th out of 131 in ‘Biophysics’ | 1.709 | |
| Biology Letters | 5.0 | 22nd out of 209 in ‘Agricultural and Biological Sciences’ | 1.177 | |
| Interface Focus | 7.3 | 13th out of 131 in 'Biophysics' | 1.222 | |
| Open Biology | 8.4 | 25th out of 204 in ‘Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology’ | 1.477 | |
| Royal Society Open Science | 4.9 | 10th out of 110 in ‘Multidisciplinary’ | 1.187 | |
Altmetrics are non-traditional metrics proposed as an alternative to citation impact metrics.
We use a partner organisation called Altmetric to track and display the online activity around an article. Altmetric track social media sites, newspapers and magazines for mentions of each published article. The aim is to help authors quantify the attention their article is receiving and to help readers establish the articles their peers think are interesting.
The Altmetric ‘doughnut’ can be found on the ‘Details’ tab of each article.
We provide information on publication times, which are regularly updated.