“The massive and rapid response of the scholarly community to COVID-19 extends far beyond medical care or medical sciences, and its ripples will continue for years, or decades”

Research analyst Clarivate announces its 2021 Journal Citation Report, which measures impact factors (citations divided by “source items”) as recorded in the Web of Science collection.

There were one million citations (a first) to Nature last year. Of its 16 (what Clarivate calls) items with over 500 citations, 12 were COVID-19 related. The Lancet took the top impact spot in general medicine, with three of the top ten highest cited articles, all of them pandemic related.

Clarivate adds there were 25 per cent more articles and citations in ’21 than ’20, not just article about COVID-19 itself but also on aspects of the global crisis it created, “from the influence of lockdowns in measures of social/economic equality, to how disruptions in the supply chain affected agriculture.”

“The massive and rapid response of the scholarly community to COVID-19 extends far beyond medical care or medical sciences, and its ripples will continue for years, or decades,” Clarivate states.

Which is good, but what really interests authors and editors is where their journal ranked against the competition

For 2021 there are citation factors for 12 828 science journals, 6691 in social sciences, and 3092 in arts/humanities.