More than just a number: How new impact factors help Discover authors
Author: Dylan Parker
Publishing Director, Discover
Discover journals were built with openness, inclusivity, and global reach at their core. With authors from nearly 160 countries from wide ranging research areas, the Discover portfolio has become a trusted home for scientists worldwide.
Now, we’re proud to share a new chapter in our journey: six more Discover journals have been awarded their first-ever impact factors (IFs). In this blog, I discuss the value of adding IFs to the broad set of indicators that we use when delivering the research published in Discover journals. I’ll also explore why this milestone matters—not just for our journals, but for the diverse researchers who publish with us.
We cover what you discover
The Discover journals have a diverse author base that hails from approximately 160 countries from all corners of the world, which is something we are incredibly proud of at Springer Nature. One of our key goals is to empower more scientists from emerging research hubs throughout the world to share their work with the global community. Recently, six of the journals in our Discover portfolio were awarded their first-ever impact factors (IFs) giving us a total of eight journals with this metric.
While we know that no single metric can capture the full value of a piece of research, this achievement marks an important milestone—enhancing visibility, credibility, and opportunities for our global author community.
IFs are just one of the many key markers of research quality and visibility, but they represent a significant point in a journal’s evolution towards fully serving authors in every part of the world. Career progression and grant funding can both be influenced by whether an author’s published work appears in journals with an IF. This important milestone could enhance the opportunities and reach of our authors everywhere.
IFs in a nutshell
The IF shows how often—on average—recent articles from a journal are cited by other researchers. It is calculated annually based on all the citations of a paper made in a year compared to all the other journal articles published in the past two years.
Four ways impact factors can make a difference
- Increased visibility: While we aim for all Discover journal articles to appear in the Directory of Open Access Journals, and many are also listed in Scopus and PubMed, the newly added IFs will further increase readership and engagement with your research.
- More networking opportunities: Publishing in journals recognised by an IF may help our authors to connect with leading experts in their field.
- Better funding prospects: Funders often take into account the IFs of the journals in which researchers’ work has been published when assessing applications.
- Higher citation potential: Publishing in a journal with an IF can raise the chance of your research being cited, increasing its impact.
Discover journals with IFs in 2025
- Discover Food: 3.7
- Discover Materials: 5.1
- Discover Mental Health: 2.7
- Discover Nano: 4.5
- Discover Oncology: 2.9
- Discover Psychology: 1.6
- Discover Social Science and Health: 1.3
- Discover Sustainability: 3.0
Making the most of metrics
Of course, we know that no single number can define the value of an article. We fundamentally believe in looking at research impact through a broad set of indicators. Springer Nature is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA). As part of our commitment to DORA’s principles, all Discover journals display a range of article-level metrics to help capture their impact, including download numbers, Altmetric data and Scopus CiteScore metrics (where available).
We also aim for other types of impact. For example, the Discover portfolio was built to closely align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You can easily identify which Discover journals support the SDGs by checking whether they have an SDG badge on their homepage. All of the Discover journals are also fully open access, ensuring that the research we publish can reach more of the people who can benefit from it.
Inclusive and rigorous research
Discover was created to provide a home for all valid research, with researcher needs in mind. This mission remains our driving force. We don’t chase high IFs, and we won’t turn away good research for having lesser perceived significance or impact. We continue to welcome research that may struggle to find a venue, such as replication studies, negative results, policy briefs and case reports. We believe that being inclusive about the research we publish is crucial for academic progress. You never know which data might lead to new insights down the line.
At Discover, we put you—our authors—front and centre. We pride ourselves in being fast and rigorous in our editorial processes. Our team and reviewers ensure that even while we aim for quick decisions, the quality and the integrity of what we publish is always our first priority. Now that some of our journals have the added interest that comes with an IF, you can be sure we’ll keep maintaining the high editorial standards that have earned us this credibility.
Explore Discover journals across six subject categories
- Applied Sciences
- Environmental Sciences
- Humanities and Social Sciences
- Materials and Chemistry
- Medicine and Life Sciences
- Physics and Engineering
You can browse all the Discover journals here.
Embracing the future
This new recognition shows that our imprint is maturing, and we are proud of Discover’s journey so far. We are working hard to ensure that more of our journals continue to be recognized by our communities—reaching key milestones such as receiving an IF is one step along that path. We are also working on launching new journals in subject areas where research communities need an inclusive, fully open-access home.
I want to thank our authors, editors, reviewers and readers for helping us achieve this significant milestone. Together, we form a community united by a vision of open, inclusive research communication. Want to join us? Whether your next paper confirms a much-needed null result or unveils a world-changing discovery, I invite you to submit to one of our journals. We look forward to helping you share your findings with the world.
Ready to take your discovery to Discover? Explore our journals here.
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Author: Dylan Parker
Publishing Director, Discover
Dylan Parker is the Publishing Director for Discover, one of the newest research publishing imprints at Springer Nature. He joined Springer Nature in 2016 and leads a global publishing and editorial team dedicated to the development of open access journals under the Discover imprint, covering all fields of research.
He is a long-time champion of open access, and throughout his career he has supported the publication of journals and books in communities across many fields of research, from medicine, genetics, and life sciences to chemical engineering, agriculture, and the environmental sciences.
Dylan has over fifteen years of STM publishing experience, and most recently is focused on promoting sustainable models of open access and open research. Dylan has also previously worked in broadcast and consumer media and is dedicated to using his collective experience to help promote the findings of the scientific research communities he serves.
