Journal profile · SPORT SCIENCES
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
ISSN 2624-9367 · Frontiers Media S.A. · Switzerland
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living: CAS Zone 3 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 3 (journal website); fully open access; APC charged, amount not published; median 65 days to acceptance (144 articles, last 24 months); 845 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living is published by Frontiers Media S.A. and is in Zone 3 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Sports Performance and Training, Sports injuries and prevention and Sport Psychology and Performance, together about 39.1% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living is a multidisciplinary journal which investigates all aspects of sports, physical activity, and active living. Led by Field Chief Editors Prof Richard Giulianotti (Loughborough University, UK) and Prof Grégoire Millet (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) the journal explores sports, physical activity, and active living, in diverse settings, and with the use of research methods and theories that are drawn from the natural, life, and social sciences. The journal seeks to catalyze progress by welcoming new ideas and approaches that are likely to shift paradigms in our understanding of sport, exercise, and active living, ranging from traditional sports and forms of exercise to e-sports. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: anti-doping sciences & integrity in sport biomechanics and control of human movement elite sports and performance enhancement exercise physiology history, culture and sociology of sports injury prevention and rehabilitation physical activity in the prevention and management of disease physical education and pedagogy sport psychology sport and exercise nutrition sports coaching: performance and development sport, leisure, tourism, and events sports management, marketing, and economics sports politics, policy and law sports science, technology and engineering women in sport. Furthermore, the journal welcomes submissions that explore sports, exercise, and active living across all aspects of society, including: benefits to physical health (e.g., exercise is medicine) learning mental health politics and policy social and cultural relations technological development and the economy the environment. The journal also encourages submissions that support and advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably SDG 3: good health and well-being. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living brings together prominent and promising scholars, as well as diverse policymakers, and key opinion leaders across its global fields of enquiry. The journal is committed to inspiring and communicating fresh scientific knowledge to researchers and across the wider public, private, and civil sectors, to enable new forms of scientific breakthrough and positive social change to occur. Frontiers’ journals require that manuscripts primarily comprising computational studies of public data, must include appropriate validation. Please refer to the Frontiers Standards for research methodology policy, for more information.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): SPORT SCIENCES
Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 6%); most named United Kingdom 3, Germany 3, Australia 3, Switzerland 3, Canada 2 (17 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Sports Performance and TrainingMedicine16.3%
- Sports injuries and preventionMedicine12.2%
- Sport Psychology and PerformancePsychology10.7%
- Cardiovascular and exercise physiologyMedicine4.8%
- Physical Activity and HealthMedicine4.7%
- Sports, Gender, and SocietySocial Sciences4.7%
- Sport and Mega-Event ImpactsSocial Sciences4.5%
- Motivation and Self-Concept in SportsPsychology3.8%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Sport Sciences | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Sport Sciences | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
Web of SciencePMCPublisher website
Other: EBSCO, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, CLOCKSS, Crossref
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.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 3Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 3.9LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher)
- 3.9Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.83LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.24LetPub ·
- h-index
- 57OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 994OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 2.6OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 6.7%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 767LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 4,041 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 974 | 974 | 370 |
| 2025 | 845 | 845 | 2,572 |
| 2024 | 563 | 563 | 3,244 |
| 2023 | 480 | 480 | 4,943 |
| 2022 | 507 | 507 | 6,502 |
| 2021 | 399 | 399 | 7,422 |
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.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with PubMed · to
65 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 44 days – 99 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 21 days (144 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 89 days
- Sample
- 144 articles with submission and acceptance dates (1,936 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 15 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 15 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
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.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | CHF 1,950 | Yes | CC BY | |
| OpenAlex | CHF 1,950 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 2,125 | Yes | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare1 items from the author guidelines
- Keywords
- 5–8
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAI use, Conflicts of interest, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- AI use Use of AI to create written or visual content
Authors should not list a generative AI technology as a co-author or author of any submitted manuscript. Generative AI technologies cannot be held accountable for all aspects of a manuscript and consequently do not meet the criteria required for authorship. If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, this use mu…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Conflicts of interest Safeguards against financial conflicts of interest
CrossMark is applied to maintain published content and alert readers to changes. Model summary
Only leading researchers acting as Associate Editors, who are not part of Frontiers' staff, can make acceptance decisions based on reviews performed by external experts acting as Community Reviewers or Reviewers. None have a financial incentive to accept articles, i.e. they are not paid for their role as Associate Editor or community Reviewer, and any award scheme is not linked to acceptances of m…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Open access and copyright
Figures, tables, and images are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY license; permission must be obtained for copyrighted material from other sources. Model summary
All Frontiers' articles from July 2012 onwards are published with open access under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). This means that the author(s) retains copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute, and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article. Upon submission, the author(s)…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open access and copyright
Articles are published open access under CC-BY version 4.0; authors retain copyright. Model summary
All Frontiers' articles from July 2012 onwards are published with open access under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). This means that the author(s) retains copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute, and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article. Upon submission, the author(s)…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review
Our rigorous, transparent peer review process combines expert review and constructive dialogue to strengthen your manuscript.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
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.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media S.A.
- Country or region
- Switzerland
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2624-9367
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
What CAS zone is Frontiers in Sports and Active Living in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living is in Zone 3 of Medicine, and in Zone 3 of the minor category Sport Sciences. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Frontiers in Sports and Active Living?
The journal's website gives an impact factor of 3; this is the journal's own figure, as LetPub lists none for it; CiteScore 3.9, h-index 57.
How long does peer review take at Frontiers in Sports and Active Living?
Based on the dates recorded on 144 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 65 days (interquartile range 44–99 days); authors report an average review time of about 15 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
Where are the editorial board members of Frontiers in Sports and Active Living based?
Of the 17 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 1 (about 6%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United Kingdom (3), Germany (3) and Australia (3). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Frontiers in Sports and Active Living?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living is indexed in ESCI, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists Web of Science and PMC; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Frontiers in Sports and Active Living open access, and what is the APC?
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living is a fully open-access journal. APC charged, amount not published.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, Publisher website, DOAJ; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-28). Last updated: .