Science Advances: Impact Factor, Submission and Figure Requirements

Science Advances is the open-access, multidisciplinary journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the publisher of Science. It launched in 2015 as AAAS's first gold open-access journal and publishes research papers and reviews in every area of science, from computer science and engineering to the environmental, life, mathematical, physical and social sciences. It is online-only, its eISSN is 2375-2548, and every paper is deposited in PubMed Central on publication.

This guide covers what authors check before submitting: the impact factor and the journal's own selectivity and speed figures, the article limits (including two places where the journal's documents disagree), the cover letter, the APC, the figure specifications for revised papers and a checklist. Every figure comes from science.org, AAAS's site for the Science family of journals, and was checked on 8 November 2026. The pages are listed under Sources.

Science Advances impact factor

AAAS's journal metrics page, which says its data are current as of June 2026, gives these values for Science Advances:

The page does not label these with a year, but data current as of June 2026 means they come from Clarivate's June 2026 Journal Citation Reports, which reports 2025 impact factors. The journal's older FAQ page still quotes an impact factor from 2020, so use the metrics page. AAAS is a signatory of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and says a range of metrics should be used to judge a journal, which is why it publishes the full set rather than the impact factor alone.

Acceptance rate and decision times

The same page gives the journal's 2025 editorial figures:

• Submissions: 35,831.
• Review rate: 16.4% of submissions were sent for peer review.
• Acceptance rate: 8.8%, calculated as accepted papers divided by all papers that received a final decision.
• Median times, January to December 2025:
  • 8 days from submission to first decision;
  • 58 days to the first decision after review;
  • 174 days from submission to acceptance;
  • 33 days from acceptance to publication.

Put together, more than five in six submissions are declined without review, typically within about a week. A paper that does go to review should be planned as roughly six months from submission to acceptance.

Article types and limits

Word count and abstract: the journal's documents disagree. The information-for-authors page gives Research Articles up to 15,000 words and an abstract of no more than 150 words. The July 2026 manuscript template and the revision checklist allow up to 17,000 words (excluding the title page, abstract, references and figure legends) and an abstract of up to 250 words. A paper that meets the stricter numbers, 15,000 words and 150 words, satisfies both. Very long papers may also face a page-length surcharge, for which no amount is published.

Other front-matter rules:

• The abstract is one paragraph without citations, and graphical abstracts are not permitted.
• The title can be at most 135 characters and the short title at most 50.
• The revision checklist asks authors not to use "new" or "novel" in the title, teaser or abstract.
• Figure captions are limited to 300 words each.

How to submit to Science Advances

1. Submit the full paper. Science Advances does not consider presubmission inquiries.
2. Use any format at first. There is no required format for initial submission. Upload a combined PDF (manuscript, figures, tables and supplementary material) plus the manuscript as a Word file (preferred) or LaTeX. Figures can be embedded in the Word file with each legend below its figure.
3. Add ORCIDs for the first and corresponding authors; both are required.
4. Write the cover letter. Science Advances lists what it must contain:
   • the article title;
   • a brief statement of why the work suits Science Advances: what is new and how it advances the field;
   • anything needed for a fair review, including related manuscripts submitted elsewhere;
   • a statement that none of the material has been published or is under consideration elsewhere;
   • potential conflicts of interest;
   • informed-consent and animal-care statements where relevant;
   • where all underlying data are available or will be deposited, and any restrictions, such as a materials transfer agreement;
   • information on auxiliary files;
   • suggested editors (a Deputy or Section Editor and an Associate Editor);
   • all funding sources;
   • any use of AI-assisted technologies.
5. Suggest reviewers. You must give names, affiliations and emails for five potential reviewers, and you may name up to three to exclude.
6. Submit through the Science journals' submission portal.

Preprints are supported on servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv and medRxiv. While the paper is under consideration, do not post versions revised in response to editors or reviewers.

Coming from Science? Authors who submit to Science can indicate interest in a transfer to another Science family journal. No reformatting is required, and the second journal's editors can reuse the reviews to speed up their decision. Note that Science Advances' figure widths differ from Science's, as shown below.

Open access and APC

Every Science Advances paper is gold open access, paid for by an article processing charge when the paper is accepted.

• APC: the licensing page gives a base APC of $5,450 for articles under a CC BY-NC or CC BY licence. The FAQ, however, says the journal charges different fees for the two licences, so confirm the amount for the licence you need.
• CC BY for funder mandates: CC BY is required for papers funded by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome, COAF, UKRI and cOAlition S members.
• Automatic waivers: AAAS waives the whole APC for corresponding authors from Research4Life (Hinari) group A and B countries.
• Discounts: active AAAS members get a 4% discount, and promotion codes are also accepted.
• Hardship waivers: considered case by case. You can ask at any time, but they are granted only on acceptance.
• Taxes: collected for authors in Canada and Germany, and authors in mainland China paying through the local payment service pay added tax and transaction fees.

Science Advances figure requirements

Science Advances' 2026 guide to preparing figures applies to revised manuscripts. At initial submission, figures only need to be clear in the combined PDF. When you revise, prepare figure files to these specifications:

Science Advances figures differ from Science's in two ways that matter when you reformat after a transfer. Science's revision instructions use a three-column grid (5.7, 12.1 and 18.4 cm) with text of about 7 pt and a 5 pt minimum. Science Advances uses two columns of 9 and 18.4 cm with an 8 pt default and a 6 pt minimum. Rebuild the figures rather than scaling them, or the text will end up below the minimum.

Other parts of the guide give slightly different numbers. One step accepts images below 300 dpi if they are clear and not pixelated, and another gives a symbol size of 5–8 pt. Work to the main specification above and you meet them all.

Each legend begins with a bold title giving an overall description of the figure, with no panel callouts or references in the title. Supplementary text, tables and figures go in a single PDF of 25 MB or less. Movies and other auxiliary files are limited to 10 files and 25 MB combined, in HD (1920 × 1080) where possible, and animated GIFs are not accepted.

To see whether a raster panel has enough pixels at 9 or 18.4 cm, enter those widths in the image DPI checker. Journal figure requirements by publisher lists Science and 13 other publishers for comparison.

Image integrity and AI

Science Advances' rules on images are explicit:

• Digital enhancements or manipulations of images, including micrographs and gels, are not allowed.
• A figure assembled from several images must show the separate parts with lines between them.
• Linear adjustments of contrast, brightness or colour must be applied equally to an entire image or plate. Nonlinear adjustments must be stated in the legend.
• Selectively enhancing or altering one part of an image is not acceptable.
• Discovered manipulation requires further documentation from the authors and can be grounds for rejection. The Science journals may use software to screen images.

On AI, Science Advances does not allow AI-generated artwork, and the Science journals do not permit AI-generated images or other multimedia without explicit permission from the editors. Their September 2026 AI guidelines go further:

• Illustrative figures: using AI to generate, refine, correct, edit or format images, diagrams or other figures for illustrative purposes is not allowed.
• Data visualizations: using AI to edit or format visualizations of research data is allowed if you declare it in the acknowledgments, with the model name and version.
• Text: any AI assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the methods or acknowledgments.

References

• Cite references in the text by number, in parentheses.
• Number them in order: first through the text, then the figure and table captions and text boxes, and last the references that appear only in the supplementary material.
• Give full author lists in the reference list; do not use "et al." in place of authors' names.
• Footnotes and endnotes are not allowed, and personal communications and working papers are not acceptable references.

Data, code and reporting

• Data: all data must be in the paper or deposited in a community or general repository such as Dryad. Post-publication embargoes are not permitted. The Science journals pay for up to 10 GB of data published at Dryad.
• Code: author-written code must be archived in a permanent public repository before publication; a GitHub link alone is not enough.
• Materials: every paper needs a materials availability statement.
• Reporting: health research should follow EQUATOR guidelines, animal studies ARRIVE, and clinical trials must include a CONSORT checklist at submission.

Pre-submission checklist for Science Advances

• Full paper ready (no presubmission inquiry), as a combined PDF plus a Word or LaTeX file.
• Research Article within 15,000 words and an abstract of 150 words or fewer: the stricter of the journal's two sets of limits.
• Abstract in one paragraph, with no citations and no graphical abstract.
• No "new" or "novel" in the title, teaser or abstract.
• Title of 135 characters or fewer, and a short title of 50 or fewer.
• Up to 10 figures and tables combined, and up to 80 references in full-author format.
• Captions of 300 words or fewer, each opening with a bold title.
• ORCIDs for the first and corresponding authors.
• Cover letter covering every item on the journal's list, including data location, funding, suggested editors and any AI use.
• Five suggested reviewers, and up to three exclusions.
• Data and code repository plans, and a materials availability statement.
• For revision: figures at 9 or 18.4 cm (or no more than 14.4 cm), sans-serif text of 8 pt (6 pt minimum), 9 pt bold capital panel labels and lines of 0.28 pt or more.
• Line art at 1200 dpi or more and images at 300 dpi or more, in RGB AI, PDF, TIFF, PNG or JPEG, and nothing made in Word or PowerPoint.
• Colours checked in the colorblind simulator.
• No AI-generated artwork, and only whole-image linear adjustments, with nonlinear ones stated in the legend.
• APC budget of $5,450 checked for your licence, or a waiver confirmed.

Related guides and tools

The figure legend generator helps you write each caption with a bold overall title and consistent panel descriptions within the 300-word limit. Our journal submission figure checklist covers the checks shared by all journals.

If you are deciding where to send a broad paper, our guides to Nature, Nature Communications, PNAS and eLife set out the same details for each. For clinical research, see the JAMA guide.

Science Advances does not permit graphical abstracts or AI-generated artwork in papers. Keep the graphical abstract maker for slides, posters and social posts about published work.

Sources

All pages are from science.org (AAAS), checked 8 November 2026.

• Journal metrics overview (impact factors, other metrics, 2025 submissions, acceptance rate and median times; AAAS and DORA)
• Science Advances mission and scope
• Science Advances information for authors (article types, limits, submission, cover letter, reviewers, image manipulation, references, supplementary files)
• Science Advances manuscript template, July 2026 (DOCX) and the biomedicine revision checklist (DOCX) (17,000-word and 250-word limits; captions)
• Science Advances guide to preparing figures, 2026 (PDF)
• Science Advances licensing and charges (APC, waivers, discounts, licences)
• Science Advances frequently asked questions (launch, ISSN, PubMed Central, licence fees)
• Open access at AAAS (launch year)
• Science journals editorial policies (preprints, data, code, AI, image screening)
• Science journals guidelines on AI use, September 2026 (PDF)
• Science information for authors (transfers within the Science family)
• Science instructions for preparing a revised manuscript (Science's figure widths, for comparison)