Journal Profile & Submission Guide

Science: Scopus, Scope & Submission Guide

Science is the weekly, multidisciplinary scientific journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). For a researcher considering submission, its importance is not simply that it is highly visible: Science is selective about work that can matter across a field or attract meaningful interest beyond a narrow specialty. Its official identifiers are print ISSN 0036-8075 and electronic ISSN 1095-9203, and the supplied Scopus source record is Source ID 23571.

This guide focuses on the decisions an author actually needs to make before targeting Science: whether the scientific contribution is broad enough, whether the evidence is strong enough for the claim, how to verify indexing and current metrics, what is known about access and peer review, and how to prepare a manuscript without turning prestige into the only journal-selection criterion. Time-sensitive details such as citation metrics, fees, submission categories, and editorial roles should always be reconfirmed on the live journal and database pages before submission.

Quick Answer: What Is Science?

Science is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal established in 1880 and published in the United States by AAAS. The National Library of Medicine catalog lists it as an English-language weekly journal and confirms the identifiers 0036-8075 (print) and 1095-9203 (electronic). Its subject position is deliberately broad: the journal serves the scientific community across disciplines rather than operating as a single-specialty title.

Science is covered in major scholarly discovery systems, including Scopus under Source ID 23571 and MEDLINE/PubMed for relevant biomedical content. Researchers should nevertheless distinguish indexing from fit. A paper can be excellent, novel, and publishable yet still be too specialist for Science if its significance is mainly confined to one technical subfield.

Before submission, check the current Science journal homepage and the journal's author instructions for the active manuscript categories, presentation requirements, policies, and submission route.

Key Takeaways for Researchers

• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
• Identity: Science has print ISSN 0036-8075, eISSN 1095-9203, and a publication history beginning in 1880.
• Scopus: the supplied source identifier is 23571; confirm the live source record when Scopus status or metrics are part of an institutional requirement.
• Scope: multidisciplinary, with strong emphasis on research whose importance extends beyond a narrowly defined specialty.
• Publication frequency: NLM records Science as weekly, except for the final week of December.
• Metrics: metric values are year-specific. This guide avoids presenting conflicting third-party 2026 figures as authoritative; use the live Scopus and Clarivate records for current values.
• Submission decision: strong methodological quality is necessary but not sufficient; breadth, novelty, evidential strength, and scientific significance are central fit questions.
• Professional support: editing and publication-readiness services can improve clarity and compliance, but cannot influence or guarantee Science's editorial decisions.

Science Journal Information at a Glance

The table separates stable identifiers from details that should be checked live because they can change between reporting years or policy updates.

What This Page Covers

• Science's publisher, identifiers, publication history and multidisciplinary role.
• Aims, scope, intended readership, and the practical meaning of broad scientific significance.
• Scopus, MEDLINE, Web of Science/JCR verification and how to read metrics responsibly.
• Current visible content formats and how to verify the manuscript category that applies to your work.
• Journal-fit questions for experimental, computational, clinical, environmental and cross-disciplinary studies.
• Manuscript-preparation, submission, ethics, data, references and disclosure considerations.
• Peer-review, access and fee information that is verified—and the points that remain necessary to confirm directly.
• Ethical ways Contentxprtz can help researchers improve publication readiness without promising acceptance.

Methodology and Source Note

This profile was prepared by cross-checking the supplied Scopus identifier with authoritative journal and bibliographic sources. Identity and publication details were checked against the National Library of Medicine Catalog and the ISSN Portal. Journal history was checked against AAAS Science back issues. Scopus status should be verified against the live source record, while Clarivate metrics should be checked in the current Journal Citation Reports or Master Journal List.

Metrics, editorial leadership, article categories, access arrangements, submission systems and fees are time-sensitive. Where a current official public value could not be verified, this page says so rather than estimating it. That distinction matters because a number copied from an old ranking page can be technically real yet wrong for the year an institution is evaluating.

What Is the Scholarly Role of Science?

Science is best understood as a general scientific journal with a cross-disciplinary readership. It is not designed to be a comprehensive record of one specialty. Instead, it selects work that can change how a field understands an important problem, introduce evidence or methods with wider consequences, or connect a specialist finding to a larger scientific question.

AAAS describes Science as a major global science weekly, and the journal combines original research with scientific news, commentary, policy-oriented discussion and other editorial formats. That mixture affects how a research submission is read. Editors are not only asking, “Is the experiment valid?” They are also deciding whether the result has sufficient conceptual reach, novelty and importance for the journal's broad audience.

For an early-career researcher or PhD scholar, this is an important distinction. A technically sophisticated dissertation chapter may still need a sharper central claim, stronger comparative context, more decisive evidence, or a clearer explanation of why readers outside the immediate subdiscipline should care.

Science Aims, Scope and the Meaning of “Broad Significance”

Science covers research across scientific disciplines, but broad scope does not mean that any scientifically valid topic is automatically suitable. The journal's editorial positioning favors findings that make a substantial advance and can be understood as important within a field or across fields. In practical terms, authors need to show both depth of evidence and breadth of consequence.

Areas that can fall within the journal's multidisciplinary remit

Recent and historical Science content spans biological and biomedical sciences, chemistry, physics, astronomy, earth and planetary science, climate and environmental science, ecology and evolution, neuroscience, materials and engineering, computational and data-intensive science, and selected social or policy-relevant scientific research. The specific boundaries are editorial rather than a fixed ASJC checklist.

What broad significance looks like in a manuscript

• A discovery changes an accepted mechanism, model, or explanation rather than merely adding another example.
• A method enables a new class of measurement or inference with relevance beyond one laboratory or dataset.
• A dataset resolves a high-impact scientific uncertainty or provides evidence with unusually broad implications.
• A cross-disciplinary result links previously separate areas and materially changes interpretation in both.
• A study addresses an urgent scientific or societal problem with evidence strong enough to influence the research agenda.

These are publication-readiness interpretations, not a substitute for the journal's official editorial judgment. A useful self-test is to read several current papers closest to your topic and ask whether your manuscript's central result can be stated with comparable clarity, evidential confidence and breadth of relevance.

Understanding Science's Scopus and Database Coverage

The supplied source data identify Science in Scopus as Source ID 23571. That identifier is useful because title-only searches can confuse a flagship journal named Science with hundreds of journals containing “science” in their names. If your university, doctoral programme or funder specifically requires a Scopus-indexed publication, open the live Scopus source profile and save the current record used for your decision.

For biomedical discoverability, the NLM Catalog records Science as currently indexed for MEDLINE and shows PubMed coverage extending back decades. The journal is also part of Clarivate's Web of Science/JCR ecosystem. Each database serves a different purpose: Scopus source data support citation and source analytics; MEDLINE supports curated biomedical indexing; Web of Science and JCR support citation indexing and Journal Impact Factor reporting.

Practical point: “Indexed” is not a permanent numerical metric. When an institution asks for Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE, Q1, or an Impact Factor, document the exact database, metric year, subject category and date checked.

How to Interpret Science's Journal Metrics

Science has very strong citation visibility, but researchers should avoid treating one number as a complete measure of journal suitability or research quality. CiteScore, SJR, SNIP and Journal Impact Factor are calculated differently and can move from year to year.

An accessible Ovid record reproduces a 2024 Journal Impact Factor of 45.8 for Science. Clarivate's 2026 JCR release reports 2025 performance, so researchers needing the newest value should use the current JCR record rather than a cached third-party page. Likewise, the current fixed CiteScore, SJR and SNIP should be taken directly from the live Scopus source profile and cited with their reporting year.

For journal selection, these metrics tell you that Science is highly visible. They do not tell you whether your paper is within scope, whether an editor will consider its advance sufficiently broad, whether the data support the headline claim, or whether Science is the best venue for reaching the specialist community most likely to build on your work.

What Does Science Publish?

The current Science site visibly publishes original Research Articles alongside editorial and magazine-style formats including Policy Forum and Feature content. Across Science's publishing history, readers also encounter reviews, perspectives, reports, news and commentary. However, a visible content label on the website should not be interpreted automatically as an unsolicited submission category.

Before drafting to a fixed word limit or reference count, use the current Science Information for Authors to identify the manuscript type that is presently open and its exact requirements. This is especially important for a journal that can revise format names, limits, supplementary-material rules and submission instructions over time.

As a publication-readiness step, researchers should prepare a version in which the main scientific claim is evident from the title, abstract, opening context, results sequence and figures. If the contribution only becomes clear after extensive specialist background, that may be a signal that the framing needs work—or that a specialist journal could reach the intended audience more effectively.

Is Science a Good Match for Your Manuscript?

Science may be a realistic target when the study combines a genuinely important research question, a substantial advance, robust evidence and a story that scientists outside the immediate niche can understand. It is less likely to fit work whose value depends mainly on incremental optimization, a narrow local application, replication without broader consequence, or a highly technical contribution that cannot be connected to a wider scientific problem.

This table is guidance, not an unofficial acceptance formula. Editors can value unexpected work precisely because it does not resemble recent papers. The goal is to test whether the manuscript makes a convincing case for why Science's readers should see it now.

Preparing and Submitting a Manuscript to Science

The official author instructions should control every submission-specific decision. Because current requirements can change, this article does not lock authors into an unverified word count, reference maximum or file specification. Use the journal's live author information immediately before submission and again before a revised manuscript is returned.

Build the manuscript around one defensible central advance

Science papers usually need an unusually clear central message. Make sure the title and abstract do not overclaim beyond the data, but also do not hide the contribution behind technical detail. The results sequence should make the evidential logic easy to follow: what was unknown, what was tested, what was observed, how alternatives were excluded, and why the conclusion matters.

Make figures carry scientific reasoning, not decoration

For a broad-readership journal, figures often need to work for both specialists and scientifically literate non-specialists. Use informative labels, define abbreviations, show uncertainty appropriately, and keep the visual hierarchy aligned with the argument. Supplementary material should support reproducibility and detail rather than rescue an under-explained main paper.

Check references, data statements and declarations

Verify every citation against the source, remove unsupported or decorative citations, disclose relevant conflicts and funding accurately, and follow current policies for data, code, materials, human or animal research, image integrity and authorship. Submission files and declarations should agree with the manuscript itself.

When ready, begin from the official author page rather than from an old bookmarked submission URL. That reduces the risk of using a retired portal or obsolete instructions.

What Happens After You Submit?

Science uses editorial assessment and peer review for research publishing, but this review did not locate a current official public average review duration or a formally stated acceptance rate that should be presented as a reliable benchmark. Those values should not be estimated from community anecdotes.

Authors should expect an initial editorial decision about whether the manuscript is sufficiently strong and suitable to send for external review. If reviewed, expert referees may assess methodological rigor, interpretation, novelty, significance, presentation, reproducibility and field-specific technical issues. A revision request is not an acceptance guarantee; it is an invitation to address questions before the editors make a further decision.

If reviewer comments arrive, prepare a point-by-point response that is factual and traceable. Distinguish changes made, analyses added, justified disagreements, and places where the text was clarified. Avoid combative language and avoid claiming that a reviewer “misunderstood” the paper without first examining whether the manuscript itself created the ambiguity.

Open Access, Reader Access and Publication Fees

Science should not be described as a fully gold open-access journal. AAAS has historically combined subscription access with public-access pathways, and Science has made research content available under delayed-access and other arrangements. Author-side open-access and licensing options can also depend on funder mandates, agreements and article circumstances.

A single current APC that applies to every Science manuscript was not verified from a public official fee page during this research. Authors should therefore avoid budgeting from an old blog or third-party directory. Check the official author workflow for the current license choices, any applicable fees, waivers or institutional arrangements, and the point at which a charge becomes relevant. If a grant requires immediate open access, resolve that requirement before submission rather than after acceptance.

Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

Researchers targeting Science should treat ethics and reproducibility as part of the scientific argument, not as administrative material added at the end. Follow the journal's current editorial policies and the policies relevant to your study design.

• List authors only when their contributions meet applicable authorship criteria, and resolve authorship order before submission where possible.
• Report methods and exclusions transparently enough for readers to understand how the result was produced.
• Do not manipulate images, omit inconvenient observations, or selectively report analyses in ways that distort the evidence.
• Provide accurate data/code/material availability information and honor privacy, consent, biosafety and ethical-approval requirements.
• Disclose funding and competing interests accurately.
• Do not submit substantially the same manuscript simultaneously to another journal.
• Use generative AI or language tools only in ways permitted by current journal and institutional policies, with human verification of every scientific claim and citation.

Common Reasons a Strong Paper May Still Be Unsuitable

A rejection or editorial decline from Science does not necessarily mean a study is poor. Journal fit operates at a different level from technical validity. Common mismatch patterns include a contribution that is important only to a narrow specialty, insufficient evidence for a very broad claim, a result whose novelty has been reduced by recent competing literature, or a manuscript that does not make its conceptual advance intelligible to a multidisciplinary audience.

Other preventable problems include overstated conclusions, inconsistent figures and text, unclear statistics, missing controls, weak comparison with prior work, incomplete data or code information, and an abstract that advertises impact without explaining the scientific mechanism or evidence. In these cases, improving the manuscript may help regardless of whether Science remains the target journal.

A Publication-Readiness Checklist Before Submission

1. Confirm identity: use Science's official site, ISSNs 0036-8075/1095-9203 and Scopus Source ID 23571.
2. Read current papers: compare your manuscript with several recent Science papers close to the topic and methodology.
3. Write the one-sentence advance: state what is newly established and why it matters beyond the immediate niche.
4. Stress-test the claim: check whether the strongest headline statement is supported by the strongest available evidence.
5. Audit figures: verify labels, units, legends, statistics, image integrity and consistency with text.
6. Audit references: confirm metadata and ensure each citation genuinely supports the sentence in which it appears.
7. Check ethics and disclosures: approvals, consent, funding, conflicts, authorship and data/code statements must be accurate.
8. Use live author instructions: confirm the active manuscript category, length, files, supplementary material and submission route.
9. Verify metrics only if needed: record database, metric year, category and date checked rather than copying undated web numbers.
10. Get a final clarity review: a reader outside the subdiscipline should be able to identify the problem, evidence, result and significance.

Summary: Science Journal Profile

Science is a long-established weekly multidisciplinary journal published by AAAS, with print ISSN 0036-8075, electronic ISSN 1095-9203 and Scopus Source ID 23571. It is widely indexed and highly visible, including MEDLINE coverage for relevant biomedical literature and inclusion in major citation databases. Its broad scientific role means that journal selection should focus on more than rankings: the manuscript needs a substantial, well-supported advance with significance that can extend beyond a narrow specialty.

Researchers should confirm current Scopus and JCR metrics, active manuscript categories, author instructions, access choices, charges, editorial policies and the submission route directly from live official sources before submitting. If Science is the target, preparation should emphasize rigorous evidence, disciplined claims, clear cross-disciplinary framing, transparent research reporting and exact compliance with the journal's current instructions.

Frequently Asked Questions About Science

What is Science?

Science is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It began publication in 1880 and is issued weekly. It publishes selected research and scientific commentary intended to matter beyond a narrow specialty, so authors normally need to demonstrate both rigorous evidence and broad significance.

Who publishes Science?

Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a nonprofit scientific organization based in the United States. The journal is one of the flagship publications associated with AAAS.

Is Science indexed in Scopus?

Yes. The supplied Scopus source record identifies Science under Source ID 23571. Because indexing status and source metrics can change, researchers using Scopus status for university, funding, promotion, or doctoral requirements should open the live Scopus source profile and confirm the current coverage before relying on it formally.

What is the Scopus Source ID for Science?

The Scopus Source ID supplied for Science is 23571. Use that identifier when checking the current source profile, CiteScore information, coverage history, subject categories, and other Scopus-listed details.

What are the ISSN and eISSN of Science?

The print ISSN is 0036-8075 and the electronic ISSN is 1095-9203. NLM and the ISSN Portal provide authoritative identifier records for the journal. These identifiers are more reliable than title matching alone when distinguishing the journal from other publications that contain the word Science in their names.

What subjects does Science cover?

Science is broadly multidisciplinary. It publishes work from major areas of the natural, life, biomedical, physical, environmental, computational, engineering, and social sciences when the work has strong scientific importance and relevance beyond a very narrow specialist audience. Actual fit should be assessed against current articles and the official author information rather than against a broad subject label alone.

What is the current quartile of Science?

Science is widely classified among top-ranked multidisciplinary journals, but quartiles are year- and category-specific. This page does not freeze an unverified 2026 quartile value. Researchers should verify the current quartile directly in the latest Scopus/SCImago or Clarivate category record required by their institution and record the metric year and subject category.

What is the current CiteScore of Science?

A current CiteScore value should be checked directly on the live Scopus source profile for Source ID 23571. Publicly accessible third-party listings can lag, mix fixed and tracker values, or use different reporting years, so this article does not present an unverified current number as authoritative.

Does Science have a Journal Impact Factor?

Yes. Science is covered by Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports. An accessible Ovid journal record reproduces a 2024 Journal Impact Factor of 45.8. Because the 2026 JCR release reports 2025 performance and the live Clarivate journal record was not publicly retrievable during this review, authors should verify the latest JIF in JCR before using it for formal assessment.

Is Science an open-access journal?

Science is not a fully gold open-access journal. Its publishing and access arrangements include subscription-controlled content and author/public access pathways that can change by article type and funder requirements. Authors should check the current Science author information for the available license and access options for their manuscript.

Does Science charge an article processing charge?

A single current APC applicable to every Science submission was not verified from a public official source during this review. Fees, open-access options, institutional agreements, funder mandates, and license choices can change. Authors should confirm any charge only on the official Science/AAAS author information during submission and before accepting a publishing agreement.

What types of manuscripts does Science publish?

The current Science site visibly includes Research Articles alongside scientific commentary and magazine-style formats such as Policy Forum and Feature content. Science has multiple editorial formats, but not every visible format is necessarily open to unsolicited research submission. Authors should select a manuscript category only after checking the current Information for Authors and the submission workflow.

How can I tell whether my manuscript fits Science?

Start with scientific significance rather than indexing or prestige. Compare the research question, novelty, evidence strength, breadth of interest, and methodological standard with several recent Science papers in the closest area. A technically sound specialist paper may still be a poor fit if its principal contribution is too narrow for Science's multidisciplinary readership.

How long does peer review at Science take and what is its acceptance rate?

This review did not identify a current official public average peer-review duration or an official acceptance rate that should be treated as authoritative. Do not rely on estimates from discussion forums or journal-ranking sites. Editorial screening, external review, revision needs, and subject complexity can all affect timing, and Science should be consulted directly for any current service-level information it chooses to publish.

Can Contentxprtz guarantee acceptance in Science?

No. Contentxprtz can support ethical manuscript preparation through editing, proofreading, journal-alignment review, formatting, reference consistency, cover-letter editing, and revision support. Editorial screening, peer review, acceptance, and publication decisions remain entirely with Science and AAAS; professional editing cannot guarantee an editorial outcome.

Dr. Aanya Mehta

Research Writer & Professional Business Communicator

Dr. Aanya Mehta is a research-oriented writer and professional communicator with a strong focus on accuracy, clarity, and evidence-based insight. Her work combines analytical thinking with accessible writing, helping readers understand complex business topics through well-researched, credible, and practical content.