Thomas Sanchez (Virginia Tech, USA)

Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 April 2020
Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 August 2020
Publication of the Issue: February 2021

Urban planning is a diverse field involving a broad range of disciplinary expertise. At the core of planning research is an understanding of human settlement patterns as they relate to the natural and built environment. While being a relatively small discipline that is sometimes situated within design disciplines (e.g., architecture), policy disciplines (e.g., public administration), and social sciences (e.g., geography), urban planning scholars generate research that is published in a wide array of academic journals. Can a better understanding of urban planning research activities help to better understand the direction of planning practice? What do we know about the scope and scale of urban planning research?

This thematic issue will focus on analyses and discussions of urban planning research and scholarship, also referred to as research about research, with a focus on the scholarly products of urban planning academics. Topics include methodologies, research subdomains, application of research to practice, research impact, and bibliometric analyses. The objective is to better understand the topics, motivations, context, and outcomes of research activities that can help better understand the body of urban planning research and scholarship as a whole.

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal’s instructions for authors and send their abstracts (about 250 words, with a tentative title and reference to the thematic issue) by email to the Editorial Office (up@cogitatiopress.com). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Urban Planning is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join Cogitatio’s Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal’s open access charges and institutional members can be found here.