With an Impact Factor of 4.298, Frontiers in Plant Science is the 1st most cited Plant Sciences journal in the world

This year, 211 journals were listed in the category of Plant Sciences in the 2016 edition of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), of which 31 are open-access (OA).

The Impact Factor (IF) is measured each year and reported in the JCR by Clarivate Analytics (formerly known as Thomson Reuters), along with citations and other metrics of journal impact. The IF of a journal is the average number of citations received last year to articles published in the previous two years – and is universally regarded as a metric of journal quality. The total number of citations captures how much research is built on the papers published in a journal and is therefore a measure of influence of a journal on a field. As such, the 2016-JCR analysis is based on citations in 2016 to articles published in 2014 and 2015.

Our analysis shows that the quality, impact and influence of Frontiers journals are steadily growing. With an IF of 4.298, Frontiers in Plant Sciences is the top most cited of all journals in the category of Plant Sciences, with a total of 7,624 citations in 2016 to 1,774 articles published in 2014 and 2015 (Figure 1).

Overall, with journals listed across 20 JCR categories, Frontiers’ Impact Factors are consistently ranked among the best performing journals, ranking as high as at the 96th percentile.

In summary, Frontiers in Plant Science:

• Is the most-cited journal in Plant Sciences, with 7,624 citations.

• Ranks at the 90th percentile of Journal Impact Factors in Plant Sciences category.

Read Frontiers in Plant Science Report here.

Top 10 most cited journals in Plant Sciences

Figure 1. Total number of citations in 2016 to articles published in 2014 and 2015, for the top 10 most cited journals in Plant Sciences. Bar plot shows Frontiers in Plant Science (in red) ranks 1st most cited of the 211 journals (subscription and open-access) indexed. The results are based on the 2016 Journal Citation Reports, released in 2017 by Clarivate Analytics (f.k.a. Thomson Reuters).

Scientific Excellence at Scale

Frontiers has become one of the largest open-access publishers in the world and is leading many of the technological innovations in Open Science. We engineered our Collaborative Peer Review with a review mandate focused on enhancing article quality by means of rigorous and constructive feedback from expert reviewers, quick and direct interactions between authors, reviewers and the editor. We enable their work with our unique review forum platform, and we introduced transparency and accountability by acknowledging reviewers and editors on the published articles.

With journals listed across 20 academic categories in the 2016-JCR, Frontiers journals rank in the top percentiles of Impact Factors and total citations. This confirms the rapidly growing success and influence of the Frontiers Open Science model, that consistently delivers scientific excellence at scale.

All of this is only possible with a stellar editorial board of researchers. Frontiers congratulates Field Chief Editor Joshua Heazlewood and all Specialty Chief Editors, as well as the diligent work of the Associate and Review Editors and the Frontiers Journal Management team for this outstanding achievement.

Read Frontiers in Plant Science Report here.

Frontiers in Plant Science Editorial Board

(see full board here)

Joshua Heazlewood, University of Melbourne | Field Chief Editor, Plant Science

Diego Rubiales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas | Specialty Chief Editor, Crop Science and Horticulture

Karina Schäfer, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | Specialty Chief Editor, Functional Plant Ecology

Andy Pereira, University of Arkansas | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Abiotic Stress

Maciej Zwieniecki, University of California, Davis | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Biophysics and Modeling

Jens Kossmann, Stellenbosch University | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Biotechnology

James Lloyd, Stellenbosch University | Assistant Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Biotechnology

Simon Gilroy, University of Wisconsin-Madison | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Cell Biology

Neelima Sinha, University of California, Davis | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Evolution and Development

Joshua Heazlewood, University of Melbourne | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Genetics and Genomics

Kazuki Saito, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Metabolism and Chemodiversity

Choong-Min Ryu, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Microbe Interactions

Marta Vasconcelos, Universidade Católica Portuguesa | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Nutrition

Steven Huber, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Physiology

Andreas Weber, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Physiology

Joshua Heazlewood, University of Melbourne | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Proteomics

Zoran Nikoloski, The Max Planck Society | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Systems and Synthetic Biology

Wendy Peer, University of Maryland, College Park | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Traffic and Transport

Markus Geisler, University of Fribourg | Specialty Chief Editor, Plant Traffic and Transport

Roger Deal, Emory University | Specialty Chief Editor, Technical Advances in Plant Science

Read more about Frontiers journals

Read the analysis for other Frontiers journals here. 

Discover the latest Frontiers report here