AJR-E: Early-stage Journal Rating
For journals 12–59 months after their first publication (AJR-E-1.2 from the October 2026 rerate; AJR-E-1.1 before).
Dimensions
| Dimension | Points |
|---|---|
| Editorial governance and peer review | 15 |
| Research integrity and publication ethics | 15 |
| Metadata and digital publishing infrastructure | 15 |
| Publishing stability and operational performance | 15 |
| Scholarly output quality signals | 20 |
| Scholarly reach and concentration | 10 |
| Openness, data and transparency | 10 |
A score is published when the evidence coverage is sufficient: from 80% it is official, from 60% provisional (shown and marked). Below that, or with too small an article sample, the journal is not rated and the reason is shown. Scores are computed from evidence only; no score is set by hand.
AJR Ratings are absolute lifecycle ratings. They are not citation quartiles and should not be interpreted as relative subject rankings.
Which journals are rated
AJR is published for Core Collection journals only. A rating rests on evidence from the journal’s own website, which POSI collects and checks every month for Core Collection journals. Other journals, including those found through journal search and the directory, show no AJR: no score, rating or lifecycle stage. Their citation performance is shown by PNCI, PCS and the Citation Ranking.
Where the evidence comes from
Editorial governance, research integrity and transparency are rated from published evidence, in this order:
- The journal’s own website: its policy pages, collected in each monthly run.
- Publisher-wide policies: where a publisher states that a policy (publication ethics, corrections, authorship, conflicts of interest, AI use, data, similarity checking, research ethics, complaints, copyright, ownership, advertising) covers all its journals and POSI has verified that page, the journal inherits it. Journal-specific items such as the editorial board, peer-review process, access model and fees never do.
- The journal’s own Crossref records: of its newest articles published in the last three years (up to 100, at least 20), when at least half carry a licence for the published article, that is evidence of its copyright and licensing terms; when at least half carry a Crossmark update policy, that is its corrections and retractions policy. Statements in individual articles (review dates, conflicts of interest, data availability) do not count as the journal’s policy.
A later source only fills what an earlier one could not resolve; it never overrides what the journal’s website shows. Evidence that cannot be reached is not counted against the journal. This is Evidence Coverage EC-1.1, used by AJR-E-1.2 and AJR-M-1.2 from the October 2026 rerate (7 October).
Rating scale
Every AJR Rating is read from the AJR Score by one table:
| AJR Score | AJR Rating |
|---|---|
| 90.00–100.00 | Rating A+ |
| 85.00–89.99 | Rating A |
| 80.00–84.99 | Rating A− |
| 75.00–79.99 | Rating B+ |
| 70.00–74.99 | Rating B |
| 65.00–69.99 | Rating B− |
| 60.00–64.99 | Rating C+ |
| 50.00–59.99 | Rating C |
| 0.00–49.99 | Rating D |
Example: AJR-E 85.72 / 100 is Rating A; AJR-M 82.64 / 100 is Rating A−. The rating is not a quartile and is not relative to other journals in the subject. The E-Q and M-Q quartiles published earlier are withdrawn and are not converted into ratings.
Lifecycle
- Observation: 0–11 months since first publication. No score.
- AJR-E, Early-stage Journal Rating: 12–59 months.
- AJR-M, Mature Journal Rating: 60 months or more.
A journal’s lifecycle stage does not decide its Citation Ranking, which is computed from PNCI within its PSC category (methodology).
Updates
Core Collection journals are re-rated every month, on the 7th. Each run collects the evidence again from the journal’s website, its Crossref records and OpenAlex, and computes the lifecycle stage from the rating date, so a journal moves from Observation to AJR-E at 12 months and to AJR-M at 60 months without waiting for a review. Evidence that could not be reached in a run is not counted against the journal: the previous evidence is kept. Every rating states its date and model version.
AJR-M applies from 60 months.