Science (journal)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Science, the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been shaping the scientific conversation for well over a century. Fewer than 7% of articles submitted ever make it through its doors. That single number explains why a paper accepted by Science can reshape a researcher's career overnight. But how did this gatekeeper of knowledge begin, and who built it into the institution it is today? The answers stretch from Thomas Edison's light bulb troubles in the 1880s to the mapping of the human genome in 2001, and they involve entomologists, physicists, biochemists, and a series of financial near-collapses that almost erased the journal before it ever found its footing.

• 2. An Unlikely Beginning

  ›

  Thomas Edison helped bankroll Science when an English-born New York journalist founded it in 1880. The arrangement was not purely philanthropic. Edison received favorable editorial coverage at a time when delays in producing a commercially viable light bulb were damaging his reputation, and that financial relationship was never disclosed to readers. Alexander Graham Bell later added his own support, but even two celebrated inventors could not generate enough subscribers to keep the journal afloat. Publication stopped in March 1882.

  Bell did not walk away. He and Gardiner Greene Hubbard purchased the magazine rights after it folded, then hired a young entomologist named Samuel H. Scudder to bring the journal back to life a year later. Scudder found a foothold by covering the meetings of prominent American scientific societies, including the AAAS itself. That coverage gave Science an audience, but the finances stayed precarious. By 1894 the journal was in trouble again, and it was sold to psychologist James McKeen Cattell for an undisclosed sum.

• 3. The AAAS Era Opens

  ›

  Cattell and AAAS secretary Leland O. Howard negotiated the arrangement that made Science the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900. The partnership gave the journal institutional backing it had never had before, and the early decades of the twentieth century rewarded that stability with landmark papers. Thomas Hunt Morgan published work on fruit fly genetics in its pages. Albert Einstein contributed a paper on gravitational lensing. Edwin Hubble's findings on spiral nebulae appeared there too.

  Cattell's death in 1944 transferred ownership of the journal to the AAAS outright, but it also left the publication without steady editorial direction. That gap persisted for more than a decade, until Graham DuShane took the editor's chair in 1956. Two years later, DuShane led the absorption of The Scientific Monthly into Science, lifting the journal's circulation from around 38,000 to more than 61,000.

• 4. Editors Who Shaped the Mission

  ›

  Physicist Philip Abelson, one of the co-discoverers of the element neptunium, edited Science from 1962 to 1984. Under his watch the review process became more efficient, and the journal's publishing practices were modernized. Papers covering the Apollo program missions ran in its pages, as did some of the earliest scientific reports on AIDS.

  Biochemist Daniel E. Koshland Jr. followed Abelson in 1985 and held the position until 1995. Neuroscientist Floyd E. Bloom then served through the turn of the millennium. Biologist Donald Kennedy took the role in 2000, and biochemist Bruce Alberts replaced him in March 2008. Geophysicist Marcia McNutt became editor-in-chief in June 2013; during her tenure the journal family expanded to include Science Robotics and Science Immunology, as well as the open-access title Science Advances. Jeremy M. Berg stepped in on the 1st of July 2016, and former Washington University in St. Louis Provost Holden Thorp was named editor-in-chief on Monday the 19th of August 2019.

• 5. Defining Moments in Print

  ›

  In February 2001, Science and its longstanding rival Nature published draft results of the human genome simultaneously, dividing the work between them. Science ran the Celera Genomics paper while Nature carried the publicly funded Human Genome Project findings. The coordinated dual publication was itself a statement about how consequential the results were.

  Six years later, in 2007, Science and Nature jointly received the Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanity. By 2015, AAAS chief executive Rush D. Holt Jr. was pointing to a structural shift inside the journal itself: internationally co-authored papers had climbed from slightly less than 20 percent of published work in 1992 to almost 60 percent, making cross-border collaboration the norm rather than the exception. The journal's 2024 impact factor, as recorded by the Journal Citation Reports, stood at 45.8.

• 6. Access and Reach

  ›

  Science carries a subscriber base of around 130,000, but institutional subscriptions and online access push the estimated readership above 400,000 people. The journal is based in the District of Columbia, with a second office in Cambridge, England. Membership in the AAAS is not required to submit a paper, and authors publish from around the world.

  Research articles published after 1997 become freely available, with online registration, one year after their original publication date. Articles with significant public-health implications can be released without charge immediately. Pre-1997 archives are accessible to AAAS members through a section of the website called "Science Classic". The journal also participates in programs offering free or reduced-cost access in developing countries, including HINARI, OARE, AGORA, and Scidev.net. COVID-19-related coverage received dedicated funding from the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation, reflecting the journal's continued role at the intersection of science and public life.