Key Principles

Key Principles

Read our 10 principles that provide the values underpinning our journal. These broadly explain the ethos and aspirations for what we do.

In addition to being a peer-review journal, we provide an intellectual space for engagement between researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

To achieve this, we will:

  1. Seek to publish highest quality research that has been evaluated through a fair, rigorous and robust peer-review process.
  2. Encourage and publish research and ideas that help improve the built environment, not just describe it.
  3. Maintain integrity in all our work with authors and oblige them to undertake and present their work according to ethical research and publishing guidelines.
  4. Make all research articles in the journal freely available (open access).
  5. Translate: make the research accessible not only for academics and researchers, but also for the end-users of research: policymakers, practitioners, clients, teachers and occupants.
  6. Inspire and engage: promote dialogue and greater understanding between authors and the end-users of research, to have greater impact through discussions in virtual and live events.
  7. Create an inclusive and supportive community of authors, and assist those without funding to publish in our journal.
  8. Operate as a not-for-profit, reinvesting any surplus funds into the journal and the research community that we serve.
  9. Be independent: our role and content are independent of the interests of any organisation, institution, company or government.
  10. Be comprised of researchers, academics and practitioners who understand both the content, context and applications of built environment research.

Latest Commentaries

Mombasa City, Kenya. Photo: Sebastian Wanzalla

Brian Dean and Elizabeth Wangeci Chege (Sustainable Energy for All) respond to the Buildings & Cities special issue Alternatives to Air Conditioning and explain why thermal comfort is not only a construction industry problem to solve but needs to be placed in the policy agenda on global warming. Thermal adequacy is still not understood as an essential need for human survival and that governments have an essential role.

Image: Dedraw Studio, Getty Images

Tom Hargreaves and Nickhil Sharma (University of East Anglia) comment on contributions of the Buildings & Cities special issue Energy, Emerging Technology and Gender in Homes on the role of gender in technology development and the energy transition. This must be broadened further to social justice issues. A failure to do so risks fuelling resistance and pushback to new and emerging energy technologies. Three key avenues for future research and practices for a just energy transition and emerging technologies are set out.

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