If your university, funding body, or tenure committee requires you to publish in a Q1 or Q2 journal, you need a reliable way to verify a journal's quartile — not just take the publisher's word for it. This 2026 guide walks through every legitimate source (SCImago, Scopus Sources, Web of Science, JournalsHub), shows the actual SJR cutoffs for the top fields, flags the most common predatory tricks around fake "Q1 Scopus" claims, and answers the questions researchers ask most.
What Are Journal Quartiles?
Journal quartiles (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) rank academic journals within a specific subject category by their citation impact. The most widely used quartile system is published by the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), which uses Scopus citation data. Quartiles split journals in each subject category into four equal groups:
- Q1 — top 25% (highest prestige; most cited)
- Q2 — 26th–50th percentile
- Q3 — 51st–75th percentile
- Q4 — bottom 25%
A journal can sit in different quartiles in different categories. Nature Communications is Q1 in "Multidisciplinary" but its quartile in "Biotechnology" or "Materials Science" is computed separately. Always check the quartile in your specific submission category, not just the most flattering one a publisher advertises.
Q1 SJR Score Cutoffs by Field (2026 Reference)
SJR scores are normalized by field, so a "Q1" score in one discipline is not directly comparable to another. The table below shows approximate 2026 SJR cutoffs to enter Q1 in major Scopus subject categories — useful when you're benchmarking a journal yourself instead of relying on the colored badge.
| Subject Category | Approx. Q1 SJR cutoff | Approx. Q2 cutoff |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine (miscellaneous) | ~1.30 | ~0.55 |
| General Engineering | ~0.80 | ~0.35 |
| Computer Science (general) | ~0.90 | ~0.40 |
| Economics & Econometrics | ~1.10 | ~0.50 |
| Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology | ~1.20 | ~0.55 |
| Psychology (general) | ~0.90 | ~0.45 |
| Education | ~0.95 | ~0.45 |
| Materials Science (general) | ~0.85 | ~0.40 |
| Mathematics (general) | ~0.75 | ~0.35 |
| Business, Management & Accounting | ~1.00 | ~0.45 |
Cutoffs are rounded indicative values from the SCImago 2026 release. Exact numbers shift slightly each year as citation counts update. Use the live SCImago portal for the current figure when making a final decision.
Why Q1 and Q2 Journals Matter
For many researchers, the Q1/Q2 question is not academic. It directly affects:
- Tenure and promotion — most universities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, China, and Latin America explicitly require Q1/Q2 Scopus publications for promotion.
- Research funding — many national funding bodies (e.g. DST in India, TUBITAK in Turkey, FAPESP in Brazil) score grant applications partly on past quartile placement.
- PhD completion — a growing number of doctoral programmes require at least one Q1 or Q2 paper before defense.
- Citation visibility — Q1/Q2 journals are indexed deeper, get more reader traffic, and disproportionately accumulate citations.
- H-index growth — papers in Q1 outlets are roughly 2–3× more likely to be cited within five years compared to Q3/Q4 in the same field.
When Q2 Beats Q1: The Strategic Choice Most Researchers Miss
Defaulting to "shoot for Q1 first" is often the wrong move. A well-chosen Q2 journal beats a Q1 journal when:
- Time-to-decision matters. Q1 journals in clinical medicine often run 4–8 months to first decision; many Q2 journals in the same category respond in 6–10 weeks.
- Your acceptance probability is low. A 5% acceptance rate journal pays off only if your paper is in the top decile of submissions. Q2 outlets typically have 20–35% acceptance, meaning fewer cycles of rejection-and-revise.
- Open access without APC matters. Many Q2 society journals are diamond-OA (free to publish, free to read), while their Q1 counterparts charge $3,000–$5,000.
- Your field has few Q1 outlets. Some narrow Scopus categories have only 4–6 Q1 journals. Targeting Q2 broadens the realistic submission pool by 5–10×.
- Your committee accepts "Q1 or Q2." Read the small print of your tenure requirement. Treating Q2 as second-best when your institution treats it as equivalent burns time for no return.
The right strategy is match journal quartile to paper quality and timeline, not chase the highest quartile by default.
Step-by-Step: How to Find Q1/Q2 Journals on SCImago
- Open scimagojr.com.
- Click Journal Rankings in the top navigation.
- Pick a Subject Area — e.g. "Medicine", "Engineering", "Computer Science", "Economics, Econometrics and Finance".
- Narrow further with a Subject Category — e.g. "Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine" inside Medicine. Quartiles are computed per category, so this step matters.
- Select the Quartile filter (top of the table) and choose Q1 or Q2.
- Sort by SJR, H-index, or Cites/Doc (2 years) depending on what your committee values.
- Click any journal to see its full quartile history, country, publisher, ISSN, and citation chart.
You can also search by title or ISSN to look up a specific journal's quartile directly. SCImago shows up to 25 years of quartile history — useful for spotting journals that recently dropped from Q1 to Q2 (or worse).
How to Find Q1/Q2 Journals on Scopus Sources
- Visit the Scopus Sources page — this part is free to access without a subscription.
- Search by title, ISSN, publisher, or subject area.
- Download the full Scopus source list as Excel (refreshed monthly) for offline filtering.
- Cross-reference each candidate journal's ISSN against SCImago to confirm the current quartile.
Important: A journal being "Scopus-indexed" is not the same as being Q1 or Q2. The Scopus source list contains all four quartiles, plus journals that were recently delisted ("discontinued"). Always confirm the live quartile on SCImago before submitting.
Using JournalsHub to Find Q1/Q2 Journals Fast
JournalsHub merges SJR scores, JCR Impact Factors, CiteScore, acceptance rates, APC fees, time-to-publication, and open access status into a single comparable view. To find Q1/Q2 candidates in your field:
- Browse the full catalog at /journals/ and sort by SJR score to surface the top quartile.
- Drill into a research area to see field-specific rankings.
- Use the Impact Factor Checker to verify a known journal's SJR and JCR quartile by ISSN in one lookup.
- Compare two journals head-to-head with the Compare tool when you're deciding between options.
- Confirm current indexing status (Scopus, DOAJ, JCR) on the Indexing Tracker before submitting — newly delisted journals lose their quartile too.
Q1 and Q2 Examples by Field (For Reference)
These are well-known journals that have held a Q1 or Q2 position in their primary subject category in recent SCImago releases. Always re-verify the current quartile before submitting — rankings shift annually.
Medicine & Clinical Research
Q1: The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, BMJ, Annals of Internal Medicine, Nature Medicine. Q2: European Journal of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Postgraduate Medical Journal. See more in the Lancet portfolio and the BMJ portfolio.
Engineering & Materials Science
Q1: IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Advanced Materials, Nature Materials, Materials Today, Composites Part B. Q2: Materials & Design, Journal of Materials Research and Technology, IEEE Access. Browse engineering options at /journals/field/engineering/.
Computer Science & AI
Q1: IEEE TPAMI, ACM Computing Surveys, Information Sciences, Expert Systems with Applications. Q2: Computers & Security, Pattern Recognition Letters, Knowledge-Based Systems. Filter by computer science at /journals/field/computer-science/.
Life Sciences & Biology
Q1: Cell, Nature, PLOS Biology, eLife, Current Biology. Q2: Journal of Experimental Biology, BMC Biology, Biology Letters. See biology research area for more.
Social Sciences & Business
Q1: American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal. Q2: Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, Long Range Planning. For business and management, the ABDC list is often a more relevant ranking than SJR — see why below.
Adjacent Ranking Systems You Should Know About
SJR quartiles are not the only ranking system. Different committees and regions weight different lists. Knowing which one matters to your audience saves you from optimizing for the wrong metric.
Web of Science / JCR Quartiles
The Web of Science (Clarivate) has its own quartile system through the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), based on the classic Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Coverage is ~21,000 journals vs Scopus' ~25,000. Many institutions in the US, UK, and parts of Europe weight JCR over SJR. Always check both: a journal can be Q1 SJR and Q2 JCR (or vice versa).
ABDC Journal Quality List
The Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) maintains a 4-tier ranking (A*, A, B, C) widely used for business, accounting, finance, and management research — particularly in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and parts of Asia. For business researchers, an ABDC A* often outweighs an SJR Q1. See the full ranked list at /abdc-journal-list/.
ERA (Excellence in Research for Australia)
Australian government-maintained list used for institutional research assessment. Provides A*, A, B, C ranks for science and humanities journals.
CWTS Leiden Ranking
Bibliometric ranking from Leiden University focusing on field-normalized citation impact rather than quartiles per se. More used at the institutional level than for single-journal evaluation.
CORE Conference Ranking
For computer science researchers — CORE A*, A, B, C ranks conferences, which often outweigh journals in CS hiring and tenure cases.
UGC CARE List (India)
The UGC CARE list is maintained by the University Grants Commission of India and is required reading for Indian academic promotion. Many UGC CARE journals overlap with Scopus, but not all — verify both.
DOAJ: Finding Quality Open Access Q1/Q2 Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists vetted, legitimate open access journals. DOAJ membership is itself a basic quality filter — predatory open access journals are not accepted. Many DOAJ-listed journals are also Scopus or Web of Science indexed. Use DOAJ + SCImago together to find open access Q1/Q2 outlets, especially when you need free-to-read distribution to comply with funder mandates.
Red Flags: How Predatory Journals Fake "Q1 Scopus" Claims
The phrase "Q1 Scopus indexed" is the most-abused marketing line in academic publishing. Predatory and low-quality journals routinely lie about it because checking is annoying. Verify every claim against the source. These are the most common tricks:
- Old quartile, no date. A journal lists "Q1 (Scopus)" on its home page but the actual SJR record shows it dropped to Q3 in 2022 or was delisted entirely. Always check the current SCImago year.
- Different journal, same name. The Q1 Scopus record belongs to a journal with a similar name from a reputable publisher. The predatory clone uses the same wording on a different ISSN. Always verify by ISSN, never by title alone.
- "Scopus pending" or "Scopus accepted". Not a real status. A journal is either currently indexed in Scopus or it is not. "Pending" almost always means rejected or never applied.
- "Best quartile" mis-labeled as Q1. SCImago shows the highest-ranking category as "best quartile". A journal that is Q1 in a niche category and Q4 in its primary one may advertise itself as "Q1". Check every category.
- "Indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar". Google Scholar is not a curated index — it lists nearly everything. Mentioning it as if it were an indexing badge is a strong signal of bad faith.
- Mass solicitation emails. Real Q1 journals do not cold-email random PhD students offering "fast-track Q1 publication for a fee".
For a full predatory checklist see our companion guide on how to identify predatory journals.
APC Ranges for Q1/Q2 Journals (2026)
Article processing charges vary dramatically by quartile, publisher, and field. Rough 2026 ranges in USD:
| Tier | Typical APC range (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Elite Q1 (Cell, Nature, Lancet portfolio) | $5,000 – $11,500 | Hybrid OA option only; subscription model still dominant. |
| Standard Q1 (society journals + large publishers) | $2,500 – $4,500 | Some waivers for low-income countries. |
| Q2 (mainstream OA) | $1,500 – $3,000 | PLOS, MDPI (Q1/Q2 titles), Frontiers, BMC. |
| Diamond OA (Q1 or Q2) | $0 | Funded by societies, universities, or government. Rare but real. |
| Subscription-only Q1/Q2 | $0 to publish | Free to publish but paywalled — limits citation reach. |
You can filter the JournalsHub catalog by APC range and OA status on the low-APC journals list and the free-to-publish journals list.
Acceptance Rates: Q1 vs Q2 Reality Check
Acceptance rate is not part of the quartile formula, but it materially affects your publication timeline. Indicative 2026 ranges:
- Elite Q1 (Nature, Science, NEJM, Cell): 5–8% acceptance.
- Standard Q1: 15–25% acceptance.
- Q2: 20–40% acceptance.
- Q3: 35–55% acceptance.
- Q4: 50–70% acceptance (acceptance rate alone is not a quality signal — predatory journals also have high acceptance).
If your committee accepts both Q1 and Q2, picking a 30%-acceptance Q2 over a 15%-acceptance Q1 cuts your expected number of rejection cycles roughly in half.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Q1 journal always better than a Q2?
Within a category, Q1 is the top 25% by citation impact, so yes — prestige-wise, Q1 outranks Q2. But Q2 journals can be a smarter strategic choice for many papers: faster review, higher acceptance rates, lower APC, often equally accepted by tenure committees that list "Q1 or Q2" as the bar.
Can a journal have no quartile?
Yes. Journals not indexed in Scopus do not receive an SJR quartile. This includes many newer journals, regional and humanities titles, and recently delisted ("discontinued") sources. They may still appear in Web of Science with a JCR quartile.
How often are quartile rankings updated?
SCImago publishes new quartiles annually, typically in the first half of the calendar year, based on prior-year citation data. JCR (Clarivate) also publishes annually, usually in June.
What is the difference between Q1 SJR and Q1 JCR?
Q1 SJR is based on SCImago/Scopus data using the SJR indicator. Q1 JCR is based on Web of Science data using the Journal Impact Factor. The two systems cover different sets of journals and use different weighting, so a journal can be Q1 in one and Q2 (or unranked) in the other. Check both if your committee does not specify.
How do I find Q1 journals with low or no APC?
Cross-reference SCImago Q1 lists with the DOAJ. Many society-owned Q1 journals offer no-fee subscription publication or modest hybrid OA charges. Browse low-APC journals and free-to-publish journals on JournalsHub to surface them quickly.
How can I check if a journal has been delisted from Scopus?
Download the latest Scopus source list from scopus.com/sources — it includes a "Discontinued" tab with the delisting date. Or look the journal up on the JournalsHub Indexing Tracker, which flags Scopus, DOAJ, JCR, and OpenAlex status side by side.
Are MDPI journals Q1 or predatory?
It depends on the specific title. Several MDPI journals genuinely sit in Q1/Q2 SCImago categories with strong editorial boards. Others have been criticized for special-issue volume, fast-track review, and self-citation patterns. Evaluate each MDPI title on its own merit: check SJR quartile, JCR quartile, editorial board, retraction history, and the rate of special-issue papers — do not generalize across the publisher.
Does a Q1 journal guarantee my paper will be cited?
No. Q1 outlets get more citations on average, but individual papers vary widely. A topical, well-written paper in a Q2 journal frequently outperforms a niche paper in Q1. Topic, novelty, and clarity matter more than venue at the paper level.
How do I publish in a Q1 journal as an early-career researcher?
Three things help most: (1) co-author with an established researcher in the field; (2) target Q1 journals whose stated scope precisely matches your paper, not the highest-prestige outlet you can find; (3) write a strong cover letter explaining why the paper matters specifically to that journal's audience. Pre-submission inquiries are welcome at many Q1 journals — use them.
Conclusion
Finding Q1 and Q2 journals in your field is a verifiable process — not guesswork. Use SCImago for SJR quartiles, Scopus Sources for indexing confirmation, JCR for Impact Factor quartiles, and JournalsHub to pull all of it into a single comparable view. Always check the quartile for your specific submission category, confirm the journal is currently indexed (not discontinued), and weigh quartile against APC, acceptance rate, and turnaround time. Strategic Q2 placement often beats Q1 hopes-and-prayers.
Useful next steps on JournalsHub:
- Verify a specific journal's quartile and IF with the Impact Factor Checker.
- Confirm Scopus / DOAJ / JCR status with the Indexing Tracker.
- Compare two journals side by side with the Compare tool.
- Browse the ABDC Journal Quality List for business and management research.
- Read the companion guide on how to identify predatory journals.