Citation issues cost these 20 journals their impact factors this year

Twenty journals lost their impact factors in this year’s Journal Citation Reports for excessive self-citation and citation stacking. Nearly half of the journals on the list are from well-known publishers MDPI, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley.
Many institutions use the controversial metric as an indicator of journal quality. And suppressing a journal’s impact factor can have negative effects on the publication and the authors who publish papers in it. In 2024, Clarivate suppressed 17 impact factors, a substantial increase from 2023’s four. The publishers of some of these journals disagree with the Clarivate's decision, while others have launched internal investigations.
Another high-profile case has interested scientists. Read now


