Scimago: journal quartiles on every publication
Research offices are routinely asked how much of their output appears in Q1 journals. Discover RIMS answers that by matching each publication’s journal to the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and recording the journal’s best quartile.
- Role
- Journal quartile and rank
- Matched by
- ISSN, then exact journal title
- SJR updates
- Yearly, in June
- Edition used
- The latest file uploaded
What Discover RIMS takes from Scimago
An administrator uploads the SJR export file, and the platform reads these columns from it.
| Data | What it is used for |
|---|---|
| Best quartile | The journal’s best SJR quartile across its subject categories, stored on each publication as Q1 to Q4. |
| SJR value and categories | Used to work out whether the journal is in the top 10% of any of its subject categories by SJR. The result is stored as a top-10% flag. |
| ISSN and title | Used to match publications to journals: ISSN first, then the exact journal title. |
Where quartiles appear
Quartiles are applied at every sync, and an administrator can re-apply them on demand after uploading a new file.
- On each researcher profile, as a count of publications per quartile and in the top-10% band.
- In publication search and on profiles, as a filter: Q1 to Q4, or top 10%.
- In analytics, as the quartile distribution by year and by faculty, with the share of publications that have a quartile at all.
Two things to know before you report on quartiles
One SJR edition is applied to every publication, whatever its year. A 2019 paper is shown with its journal’s quartile in the latest uploaded edition, not the 2019 edition. If you report quartiles at the time of publication, check those figures against the SJR edition for that year.
The top-10% flag is about the journal, not the paper. It means the journal is in the top 10% of a subject category by SJR; it does not mean the paper itself is among the most cited.
SJR, CiteScore and the Journal Impact Factor
SJR is calculated by SCImago from Scopus data and updated every June. CiteScore comes from Scopus itself, and the Journal Impact Factor from Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports. They rank journals differently, so a journal’s quartile can differ between them. Our guide to CiteScore, SJR and SNIP explains how.
Other sources in the record
No single index covers a university’s output. Each source fills a gap the others leave, and Crossref catches DOIs the rest miss.
- Publications and citations OpenAlex The main source: every work and citation count in a researcher’s record, the countries of their co-authors, and the h-index and i10-index on their profile.
- Researcher identity ORCID The anchor for each researcher. Their ORCID iD finds their works in OpenAlex, and the DOIs on their public ORCID record fill gaps.
- Author IDs and indexed journals Scopus Scopus Author IDs identify researchers who have no ORCID iD, and the Scopus source list flags publications in Scopus-indexed journals.
Further reading
- Insight CiteScore, SJR and SNIP Compared: Choosing the Right Journal Metric Three Scopus-derived alternatives to Journal Impact Factor — each addressing a different weakness. When to reach for CiteScore, SJR or SNIP.
- Guide Journal Impact Factor Explained: What It Measures, What It Misses What the Journal Impact Factor actually is, what a "good" JIF looks like, where it helps, where it misleads, and how to use it responsibly under DORA...
- Guide Journal and Researcher Metrics: A Guide for Research Offices Journal Impact Factor, CiteScore, SJR, SNIP, h-index, FWCI — what each metric measures, where it misleads, and how a RIMS keeps decisions evidence-led...
Sources: About SCImago Journal Rank · SJR help: quartiles · SJR FAQ: update cycle
Questions about the Scimago integration
Not covered here? Ask us directly
The best one. SJR assigns a quartile per subject category, and the platform stores the journal’s best quartile, which is also what SCImago shows on its journal widget.
SCImago updates SJR every June. Upload the new file when it is released; quartiles are re-applied at the next sync, or immediately on request.
Its journal could not be matched to SJR by ISSN or exact title, or SCImago does not rank it. Conference papers, books and journals outside Scopus usually have no quartile.
No. These are SJR quartiles. Journal Impact Factor quartiles come from Clarivate and can differ.