The answer depends on what “predatory” actually means
Scientific Reports is one of the world’s largest open-access journals. It publishes across biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, Earth science, psychology and engineering. It charges authors an article processing fee, publishes a very large number of papers and regularly advertises guest-edited collections.
To some researchers, that combination triggers an immediate suspicion:
Is Scientific Reports a predatory journal wearing the Nature logo?
The evidence-based answer is no.
Scientific Reports is a legitimate, peer-reviewed, indexed open-access journal published by Nature Portfolio. It does, however, possess several features that are sometimes loosely associated with predatory publishing: a broad scope, high publication volume, author-paid fees and active solicitation of manuscripts.
Those similarities are superficial. Predatory publishing is not defined by size, open access or the existence of a publication charge. It is defined primarily by deception, absence of meaningful editorial services, sham peer review, hidden financial practices and failure to maintain the scholarly record.
A useful evaluation therefore requires more than asking whether a journal charges money. It requires opening the machinery and inspecting the gears.
What is a predatory journal?
The World Association of Medical Editors, or WAME, describes predatory or pseudo-journals as publications that collect article processing charges without meeting accepted standards of scholarly publishing. Such journals may claim to conduct peer review while publishing most submissions without genuine external scrutiny. They may also lack clear policies for conflicts of interest, corrections, retractions, archiving and fee disclosure.
WAME also warns against deciding that a journal is predatory on the basis of a single characteristic or blacklist. Some warning signs can occur in legitimate journals, particularly new journals and journals based in lower-income countries. The more reliable approach is to look for a cluster of serious red flags, especially deception and unverifiable claims.
For this audit, the journal is evaluated using criteria drawn primarily from:
- WAME’s framework for identifying predatory or pseudo-journals.
- The Think. Check. Submit. approach to journal evaluation.
- Independent information recorded by the Directory of Open Access Journals, or DOAJ.
- The journal’s own publicly available editorial, peer-review and publishing policies.
Official journal pages are useful for determining what a journal claims to do. Independent databases such as DOAJ are useful for checking whether at least some of those claims have been externally recorded or reviewed.
The audit
1. Is the publisher clearly identified?
What should be checked?
A legitimate journal should clearly identify:
- the publisher;
- the journal title and ISSN;
- the people responsible for editorial management;
- submission and support channels;
- its relationship to any parent publishing organization.
Predatory operations often conceal their ownership, use an unverifiable address or adopt a name resembling that of an established journal.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal identifies itself as a Nature Portfolio journal and gives the online ISSN 2045-2322. Its contact page identifies the chief editor, deputy editors and senior editorial staff. Manuscripts are submitted through Springer Nature’s formal submission system, while author and reviewer queries are directed through identifiable support channels.
DOAJ independently records Nature Portfolio as the publisher and the United Kingdom as the publisher country. It also records the same ISSN.
Verdict: Pass
There is no meaningful evidence of concealed ownership, journal hijacking or a fictitious publisher.
2. Is the editorial board identifiable and academically credible?
What should be checked?
A suspicious journal may:
- provide no named editor;
- list only two or three unidentified board members;
- give no affiliations or academic qualifications;
- invent editorial-board members;
- list scholars without their permission;
- use the same board across unrelated journals.
Merely displaying a long list of names is not enough. The names should be connected to relevant disciplines and institutions.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal publicly lists its in-house editors, senior editorial board and subject-specific editorial-board members. The board is organized across fields including biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, materials science, Earth and environmental science, engineering and registered reports. Institutional affiliations are provided for board members.
The journal states that editorial-board members must hold a PhD or equivalent research degree and be active, independent researchers in a relevant field. Their responsibilities include determining whether manuscripts should be reviewed, selecting reviewers and making decisions based on reviewer reports.
That does not prove that every editor will handle every paper equally well. It does establish that the journal has a visible and professionally structured editorial system.
Verdict: Pass
The journal does not display the anonymous or evidently fabricated editorial structure commonly associated with predatory publishing.
3. Is the peer-review process clearly described?
What should be checked?
This is one of the most important criteria.
Warning signs include:
- no mention of peer review;
- guaranteed acceptance;
- acceptance within a few days regardless of subject;
- reviewer reports that are generic or irrelevant;
- authors being asked to provide reviewers who are accepted without verification;
- payment being treated as the condition for acceptance.
A journal’s peer-review policy should explain who screens manuscripts, who chooses reviewers, what reviewers evaluate and who makes the final decision.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal describes a multistage editorial process.
First, submitted manuscripts undergo initial checks covering authorship, competing interests, ethical approval and plagiarism. A manuscript that passes these checks is assigned to an editorial-board member who is described as an active researcher in the relevant field. The editor decides whether the paper is suitable for external review and normally selects two or three reviewers.
Reviewers are instructed to evaluate methodological and analytical soundness, statistical validity, support for the conclusions, data availability, engagement with the literature and ethical concerns. The handling editor can accept the manuscript, request minor or major revision, or reject it.
Authors may suggest reviewers, but the journal states that these suggestions are not necessarily followed. Authors may also request the exclusion of a limited number of researchers.
This is a conventional peer-review structure. It does not guarantee that every review is rigorous. No large journal can make that guarantee. The relevant question is whether the journal institutionally replaces peer review with payment. Its published process does not indicate that it does.
Verdict: Pass at the journal-policy level
There is no evidence that Scientific Reports systematically operates without peer review. Individual cases of weak review, if found, would demonstrate editorial failure in those cases, not automatically establish that the entire journal is predatory.
4. Does the journal promise implausibly fast publication?
What should be checked?
Predatory journals often promise publication within a few days. Such timelines may not allow enough time to identify reviewers, obtain reports, process revisions and check the final manuscript.
Speed alone is not suspicious. A rapid first decision may simply mean that the journal performs efficient administrative checks or rejects unsuitable manuscripts before external review. The more informative measure is the time from submission to final acceptance.
What does Scientific Reports report?
The journal reports a median of approximately 12 days to the first editorial decision and 138 days from submission to acceptance.
A 12-day first decision may sound fast, but it can include administrative checks and decisions not to send a paper for external review. A median acceptance time of 138 days is approximately four and a half months, which is compatible with reviewer selection, external assessment and revision.
The journal says that it aims to deliver an initial decision within 45 days once manuscripts proceed through its editorial process. It also describes minor and major revision pathways rather than promising automatic publication.
Verdict: Pass
The journal emphasizes efficiency, but its reported acceptance timeline is not an implausible “submit today, publish tomorrow” promise.
5. Are publication charges disclosed transparently?
What should be checked?
Charging an article processing charge, or APC, is not evidence of predatory publishing.
The relevant questions are:
- Is the fee disclosed before submission?
- Is the amount clearly stated?
- Is it clear when the fee becomes payable?
- Are taxes or additional costs explained?
- Are waivers or discounts available?
- Does editorial acceptance occur before payment?
A surprise invoice after acceptance is a significant red flag.
What does Scientific Reports show?
As of July 2026, the journal lists an APC of:
The journal states that the applicable price is determined on the date of acceptance and that local taxes may apply. It also describes waiver and discount arrangements for eligible authors.
DOAJ independently records the same maximum APC amounts, notes that the journal has a waiver policy and describes the journal as conducting anonymous peer review and plagiarism checks.
The charge is substantial, but it is not hidden.
Verdict: Pass
Scientific Reports meets the superficial characteristic “charges authors to publish,” but it does not meet the more important predatory criterion of concealing or unexpectedly imposing those charges.
6. Is the journal’s scope implausibly broad?
What should be checked?
An extremely broad scope can be a warning sign when a small or obscure publisher claims to competently review almost every academic discipline. Some predatory journals use broad scopes to maximize the number of manuscripts from which fees can be collected.
However, broad-scope journals can be legitimate when they possess a sufficiently large editorial and reviewer network. PLOS ONE and several established multidisciplinary journals follow this model.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal publishes research across natural sciences, psychology, medicine and engineering. Its official scope includes biology, physics, chemistry, Earth science, biomedical and clinical science, psychology and multiple engineering disciplines.
Its editorial board is correspondingly divided into subject areas. The journal’s model is to assess papers primarily for scientific validity and technical soundness, rather than predicted importance or likely citation impact.
This broad, validity-based structure is characteristic of an open-access mega-journal. It creates a genuine quality-control challenge because a very large and distributed editorial system may produce variability between editors and disciplines. But breadth by itself does not demonstrate fraudulent publishing.
Verdict: Caution, but not a predatory finding
The broad scope is real and should make authors examine the quality of papers and editorial handling within their specific field. It does not establish that the journal is predatory.
7. Does the journal publish an unusually large number of papers?
What should be checked?
WAME identifies unusually large or highly variable publication volumes as a reason for closer examination. A journal that publishes thousands of papers must maintain enough editors, reviewers and integrity staff to process them credibly.
High volume is therefore a risk factor for inconsistency, not a diagnosis of predation.
What does Scientific Reports show?
Scientific Reports is explicitly structured as a high-throughput multidisciplinary journal. It does not reject manuscripts because editors believe the work is insufficiently fashionable, important or likely to attract attention. Instead, its stated threshold is whether the research is original, scientifically valid and technically sound.
This model naturally produces more published papers than a selective journal such as Nature, which applies an additional test of broad importance and exceptional significance.
The consequence is that readers should not interpret the Nature Portfolio branding as meaning that every Scientific Reports paper has passed the editorial selectivity used by Nature. The journals operate under different publication criteria.
Verdict: Caution, but not a predatory finding
The volume may contribute to uneven reviewing and variable article quality. It does not show that peer review is fictitious or that acceptance is purchased.
8. Are indexing and impact claims verifiable?
What should be checked?
Predatory journals frequently:
- claim indexing in databases that do not include them;
- describe Google Scholar as a selective indexing service;
- display invented impact factors;
- use metrics supplied by obscure companies with names resembling Clarivate or Scopus;
- advertise misleading rankings without identifying the source or year.
The safest method is to verify indexing in the database itself rather than trusting a logo on the journal website.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal states that it is indexed in Web of Science, PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, Dimensions, Google Scholar, DOAJ and SAO/NASA ADS.
Its inclusion in DOAJ can be independently confirmed. DOAJ records that the journal has been included since 2011 and that its listing underwent a full review in March 2026.
The journal’s homepage currently reports a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 4.9, attributing the figure to the 2026 release of Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports.
An impact factor does not prove that every article is reliable. It does, however, differ fundamentally from an invented metric whose provider cannot be identified.
Verdict: Pass
The journal’s identity and major indexing claims are externally discoverable. There is no indication that it relies on counterfeit metrics.
9. Does it have meaningful research-integrity policies?
What should be checked?
A legitimate journal should have policies covering issues such as:
- plagiarism and duplicate publication;
- authorship;
- conflicts of interest;
- human and animal research;
- clinical-trial registration;
- data and code availability;
- image manipulation;
- confidentiality;
- research with possible harmful applications.
Predatory journals may display generic ethics language copied from elsewhere, but provide no operational detail about how concerns are handled.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal publishes extensive policies on authorship, competing interests, plagiarism, duplicate publication, human and animal research, clinical trials, data availability, code availability, digital-image standards and research integrity.
Its initial quality checks are stated to include authorship, competing interests, ethical approvals and plagiarism screening.
For clinical trials, the journal requires registration in a suitable public registry and specifies reporting expectations. It also describes conflict-of-interest obligations for authors, reviewers, editorial-board members and staff.
The presence of policies does not prove flawless enforcement. Nevertheless, these are detailed and publicly inspectable policies, not merely a one-line declaration that “the journal follows international ethics.”
Verdict: Pass
The journal has a developed research-integrity framework inconsistent with the usual profile of a predatory operation.
10. Can the journal correct or retract the literature?
What should be checked?
A journal’s responsibility does not end when an article is published.
A credible journal needs mechanisms for:
- corrections;
- retractions;
- expressions of concern;
- editorial notes;
- reader complaints;
- post-publication scientific criticism;
- linking updates to the original article.
Predatory journals frequently ignore complaints, remove papers without explanation or refuse to issue corrections because doing so would expose failures in their review process.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal has a formal correction and retraction policy. It can publish corrections, addenda, editor’s notes, editorial expressions of concern and retractions. The policy states that most formal updates are linked in both directions with the original article and indexed. Retraction decisions may be based on invalid results, research errors or violations of publication ethics.
The journal also provides a “Matters Arising” route for substantial scientific comments or clarifications concerning published papers. Some submissions may be sent to the original authors and then to independent reviewers.
The existence of retracted papers should not itself be treated as evidence that a journal is predatory. A zero-retraction journal may simply be a journal that never investigates anything. The more useful question is whether problems are publicly identified and connected to the scholarly record.
Verdict: Pass
The journal maintains visible post-publication mechanisms rather than treating publication as an irreversible cash transaction.
11. Is the content permanently archived?
What should be checked?
Predatory journals may disappear suddenly, taking published papers with them. Long-term archiving protects the literature if a journal ceases operation or changes platforms.
Authors should look for established preservation services such as CLOCKSS, Portico, PubMed Central or national-library deposit systems.
What does Scientific Reports show?
DOAJ records preservation arrangements through:
- CLOCKSS;
- Portico;
- PubMed Central;
- a national digital-preservation programme.
DOAJ also records the journal’s licensing options and deposit-policy information.
Verdict: Pass
The journal has identifiable preservation arrangements and is not dependent solely on the continued existence of one website.
12. Does it use spam-like solicitation or guest-edited collections?
What should be checked?
Unsolicited emails are common across scholarly publishing. They become concerning when they:
- bear no relationship to the recipient’s research;
- promise guaranteed or unusually rapid acceptance;
- imitate a prestigious journal;
- conceal fees;
- use excessive flattery;
- pressure authors to submit immediately.
Special issues and guest-edited collections also deserve scrutiny because weak oversight can turn them into volume engines.
What does Scientific Reports show?
The journal actively promotes calls for papers and guest-edited collections. Collection editors may solicit submissions and manage manuscripts, subject to conflict-of-interest rules.
However, the journal states that collection manuscripts are assessed under the standard Scientific Reports editorial criteria and Nature Portfolio policies. In-house editors reserve the right to take over management of a collection.
This reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of inconsistent collection-level oversight. Researchers should still evaluate the qualifications of the guest editors, the relevance of the collection and the wording of any invitation.
Verdict: Caution
Active solicitation and numerous collections resemble practices used by some predatory publishers. In this case, however, they operate within an identifiable journal and policy framework. They are grounds for vigilance, not enough for a predatory label.
So, which “predatory” characteristics does Scientific Reports actually meet?
It meets four characteristics that are sometimes mistakenly treated as proof of predatory publishing:
| Characteristic | Does it apply? | Is it diagnostic? |
|---|
| Authors pay an APC | Yes | No |
| The scope is extremely broad | Yes | No |
| The journal publishes at high volume | Yes | No |
| It actively promotes calls for papers and collections | Yes | No |
| Fees are hidden | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Publisher identity is unclear | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Editorial board is anonymous or unverifiable | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Peer review is not described | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Publication is guaranteed | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Acceptance occurs implausibly quickly | No evidence | Strong red flag if present |
| Indexing claims are obviously false | No evidence | Strong red flag if present |
| It uses invented impact factors | No evidence | Strong red flag if present |
| Ethics policies are absent | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Correction and retraction systems are absent | No | Strong red flag if present |
| Long-term preservation is absent | No | Strong red flag if present |
The more accurate criticism of Scientific Reports
Calling Scientific Reports predatory is not supported by the available evidence. But that does not mean the journal should be treated as flawless or equivalent to Nature.
The strongest fair criticism is this:
Scientific Reports operates a very large, distributed editorial system that evaluates technical validity rather than exceptional significance. This creates the possibility of uneven review quality and substantial variation in the novelty, importance and reliability of individual articles.
That criticism is compatible with the journal being legitimate.
A journal can be:
- legitimate but imperfect;
- indexed but variably selective;
- peer-reviewed but inconsistent;
- reputable without being elite;
- commercially successful without being predatory.
Scientific publishing is not divided into two magical kingdoms named “excellent” and “fraudulent.” Much of it occupies the foggy continent between them.
Final verdict
Based on publisher transparency, editorial-board structure, documented peer review, fee disclosure, recognized indexing, detailed ethics policies, long-term archiving and formal correction procedures, Scientific Reports should not be classified as a predatory journal.
It is better described as:
A legitimate, high-volume, open-access mega-journal with broad scope, moderate selectivity and potentially heterogeneous article-level quality.
Researchers considering submission should therefore ask two separate questions:
- Is this a legitimate scholarly journal?
Yes. - Is it the strongest and most appropriate journal for this particular paper, field and career objective?
That depends on the article, the discipline and the alternatives available.
The first question is about predation. The second is about strategy. Confusing them turns a useful journal assessment into a branding argument.
Key references
- Laine, C. and Winker, M. A. Identifying Predatory or Pseudo-Journals. World Association of Medical Editors.
- Scientific Reports: Editorial Process.
- Scientific Reports: Guide to Referees.
- Scientific Reports: Editorial and Publishing Policies.
- Scientific Reports: Open Access Fees and Funding.
- Directory of Open Access Journals entry for Scientific Reports.
- Scientific Reports: Editors and Editorial Board.
