PUBLISHING PLANNING RESEARCH: A CONVERSATION WITH EDITORS

Organizers

Menelaos Gkartzios, Izmir Institute of Technology and Newcastle University

Contributors

Karl Friedhelm Fischer, University of New South Wales and Technical University of Berlin
Tuba İnal Çekiç, Technical University of Darmstadt
Asma Mehan, Texas Tech University

Theme: This session aims to explore the process and challenges of publishing in planning research, featuring editors from planning journals, such as: Habitat International, Progress in Planning, Journal of Planning (Planlama) and plaNext. Each editor will have 10–15 minutes to share advice on publishing—highlighting their do’s and don’ts of submitting a paper—and offer their critical perspective on the future of publishing in planning academia. Key questions to be addressed include: What makes a good (international) paper? What should authors be mindful of when submitting a paper? Who should be the co-author of a paper? What is the ‘best’ journal to publish and how significant are metrics in choosing where to publish? What is the most effective way to respond to reviewers’ comments? How long should the review process take? What is the role of AI in the future of publishing?

While publishing remains a critical aspect in terms of developing as a scholar, the publishing landscape is becoming increasingly complex and confusing, especially for early career researchers. Challenges include the proliferation of journals—both legitimate and predatory—rising publication costs, delays in the review process due to the growing workload of academics and increasing levels of submissions, and contentious metrics for evaluating journal and article quality, ranging from citation counts to social media mentions. At the same time, structural inequalities persist, such as the underrepresentation of global south contexts and universities on editorial roles and in published outputs, compounded by the dominance of English as the primary language for international dissemination, which creates its own distortions in terms of knowledge construction. 

Rather than avoiding such complex issues, the purpose of this roundtable session is to engage in a moderated Q&A with researchers—particularly PhD students and early-career scholars—and to facilitate a constructive discussion on this evolving landscape, while providing practical advice for navigating its challenges.

Structure: We aim to structure this roundtable with a short introduction by the organiser (explaining the purpose of this discussion and introducing the speakers), an initial response from all the editors (10 minutes each, approximately 40-50 minutes in total), followed by a Q&A with the audience. The Q&A will be moderated by the organiser. 

Key words: N/A