Journal Citation Reports 2025 marks 50 years of trusted, publisher-neutral journal intelligence and unveils key updates to the Journal Impact Factor, reinforcing research integrity in scholarly publishing
In the constantly evolving landscape of scholarly communication, few tools have influenced academic publishing as profoundly as the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). This year marks a significant milestone as we celebrate 50 years: 1975 marked the first year for the JCR, introducing the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) with 1974 data.
What started as a pioneering effort by Drs. Eugene Garfield and Irving H. Sher to quantify journal influence through citations has evolved to become a comprehensive journal evaluation platform. Today, the JCR offers multidimensional profiles that provide a rich array of descriptive statistics alongside metrics that offer full transparency into underlying data. Researchers, librarians and publishers rely on this publisher-neutral journal intelligence to make confident, data-informed decisions about collections management and publication strategy.
As we celebrate the evolution of the JCR– from print, to microfiche, to today’s online platform— Clarivate remains committed to ensuring that the platform continues to deliver metrics with integrity for years to come. This year, we have made some changes to the way citations are counted in the Journal Impact Factor to support continued integrity in journal evaluation.
Figure 1: The first print edition of JCR, microfiche files from 2001 and the product home page today
Changes in 2025
Following on the Journal Impact Factor expansion and combined rankings from the past two years – evolving the JIF to a journal-level marker of both impact and trustworthiness across all disciplines – this year’s release continues to provide JIFs for all eligible journals in the Web of Science Core Collection. Journals in 229 science and social science categories continue to be ranked by category across editions, regardless of citation impact.
This year’s release sees a change in how we manage retractions to proactively safeguard the JIF from potential distortions stemming from the increased rate of retraction in recent years. Citations to and from retracted content are not counted in this year’s JIF metrics. While these are a small portion of citations present in the JCR and the metrics calculations, this change reduces the risk of metric inflation due to flawed or fraudulent work, and reinforces accountability in scholarly publishing.
Transparent metrics
In line with our dedication to transparency around the JIF metrics, the citations that are not counted are visible on the journal profile page under either the Citable Items tab or Citing Sources tab in the Journal Impact Factor tile. Citable items with excluded citations or citing sources that are excluded from the JIF calculation have an icon next to the item name, with a clickable pop-up explaining the new policy. The citation count will show as 0.
Figure 2: New policy explanation on a citable item that has been retracted
Viewing excluded citations on each journal profile page enables users to easily understand whether and how each journal’s JIF is impacted by retractions. The “Learn More” link pictured above opens our Reference Guide with additional information on the policy and how it impacts the JIF calculation.
For decades, researchers, librarians and publishers have relied upon the transparent, publisher-neutral journal intelligence in the JCR to make the right decisions for their research. As we look ahead to the next 50 years, Clarivate remains committed to ensuring that the Journal Citation Reports continues to deliver metrics with integrity for years to come.
Find out more about the 2025 Journal Citation Reports.
Check out all of our JCR articles and news.
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