Biological reviews and biological proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Biological Reviews publishes synthetic reviews, based on the literature, covering important biological questions that are interesting to a broad readership and are timely (e.g. from a fast-moving field, or due to new discoveries or conceptual advances). A 'synthetic review' goes beyond compiling information, rather it should analyse the information and build a new theoretical or conceptual framework that can substantially reshape the area. Definition of review Our concept of a review is one that comprehensively surveys the literature in order to answer a key biological question, or to identify new biological questions that need to be addressed to advance the field. This includes using data from the literature (for example, in meta-analyses). A review contrasts with primary research, which is the generation of new data. Thus, taxonomic or phylogenetic reviews, which draw conclusions from new data (even if made from “published” specimens or archived sequence data) typically fall out of scope as being primary research. Also out of scope are “opinion pieces” where they are based on an incomplete survey of the literature, where studies are only included that fit a specified hypothesis. Reviews suitable for Biological Reviews synthesise the literature and from this draw novel insights which contribute to the reshaping of an area. To help authors with some concrete guidance, a reviewer described what we are looking for in the following ways: “Excellent reviews provide new conceptual insight not present in the primary literature. For example, they may bring together literature items (e.g. empirical or theoretical) that were previously disconnected to show where they do in fact overlap; or the review may generate significant new ideas and hypotheses. Such reviews are rare but, if they are readable and clear, they can form the basis for a new research direction. Good reviews explain difficult topics and make use of examples to illustrate how phenomena or theories are connected, or provide synthetic overviews of a large body of literature (empirical or theoretical). They can be the first entry into a new literature and may often allow readers to extract information or insights (e.g., about key experiments to be done) that are difficult to see from reading the primary literature or existing summaries. There are also not-so-useful reviews. These are more like summaries. They summarize recent opinions or results of one or several fields, restate conclusions that are eas

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Editor-in-chief John WelchPublisher website

Editorial board by country: none in mainland China; most named United Kingdom 10, United States 2, Canada 1, Australia 1, New Zealand 1 (15 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-09-30

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

Indexed in: no record yet.

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Indexing the journal's website claims

SCIEScopusMEDLINEPubMedCASCAB AbstractsGeoRefCurrent ContentsPublisher website

Other: EBSCO, ProQuest, AGRICOLA

As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

Impact factor (publisher)

10.9Publisher website · 2026-09-25

Impact factor (publisher) 2025

10.9Publisher website · 2026-09-30

CiteScore (publisher)

24.5Publisher website · 2026-09-25

CiteScore (publisher) 2025

24.5Publisher website · 2026-09-30

h-index

0OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

0OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

0OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Share of gold OA articles

0%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year (publisher) 2025

129Publisher website · 2026-09-30

Downloads per year (publisher) 2025

1,552,045Publisher website · 2026-09-30

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Figures by source

Average acceptance (community reports)

EasyLetPub · 2026-09-13

Acceptance rate (publisher)

22%Publisher website · 2026-09-25

Acceptance rate (publisher) 2025

22%Publisher website · 2026-09-30

Submission to first decision

12 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-25

Submission to first decision 2025

12 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-30

Submission to acceptance 2025

303 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-30

Acceptance to publication 2025

14 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-30

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

No source has fee information yet; check the journal's website.

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

Frequency

Quarterly

ISSN

0301-7699

Society / sponsor

Cambridge Philosophical Society

Latest issue on the website

Volume 101, Issue 5 (October 2026)

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗LetPub
• Submission system ↗LetPub
• Special issues ↗Publisher website