Bridging generations: A decade of open peer review and collective knowledge-building in planning scholarship through plaNext

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24306/plnxt/113

Keywords:

open peer review, academic publishing, journal evolution, reflections, indexing, scholarly dialogue

Abstract

This dialogue between the old and new editorial board marks the 10th anniversary of plaNext – Next Generation Planning, reflecting on its evolution as an experimental and inclusive platform for early career scholars. Born out of the AESOP Young Academics Network, plaNext has advocated the principles of open peer review, aiming to foster constructive, transparent and mentorship-driven academic publishing. As a fully online and open-access journal, it has served as both a publishing outlet and a pedagogical space where academic writing is cultivated collaboratively. Now indexed in Scopus, plaNext enters a new phase—grappling with questions of visibility, institutional expectations and the sustainability of its original mission. This dialogue gathers founding and current editorial board members to examine key milestones, reflect on the ideological and operational implications of open review, and strategize on maintaining the journal’s core identity while embracing global relevance and growth. Through honest discussion of challenges, aspirations and future pathways, the conversation offers critical insights into the journal’s past decade and its renewed commitments for the next.

Published

2025-09-03

Issue

OnlineFirst

Section

Essay

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Copyright (c) 2024 Sıla Ceren Varış Husar, Simone Tulumello, Asma Mehan, Nadia Caruso, Ender Peker, Esra Kut Görgün, Francesca Dal Cin

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biographies

Sıla Ceren Varış Husar, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia

Sıla Ceren Varış Husar has a PhD in urban planning from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Her dissertation focused on regional innovation and its relation to space, people and institutions. She works as a postdoctoral researcher and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Spatial Planning Department at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. Her research project, REGINNO, focuses on the socio-spatial dimensions of regional innovation and change agency in Central and Eastern European countries, with a special emphasis on Slovakia. She is on the editorial board of plaNext and she was the chair of the AESOP Young Academics Network Coordination Team (2023–2024).

Simone Tulumello, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Simone Tulumello is associate research professor in human geography at the University of Lisbon, Institute of Social Sciences, where he is also president of the Ethics Commission and member of the scientific committee of the PhD in Development Studies. At the crossroads of human geography, critical urban studies and political economy, Simone is interested in the multi-scalar dimensions of urbanization, with focus on urban security and violence, housing policy and politics, urban imaginaries, and urbanization in the semi-periphery. Among his books are Urban Violence: Security, Imaginary, Atmosphere (with Andrea Pavoni; 2023, Lexington), Habitação além da “crise”: políticas, conflito, direito (2024; Tigre de Papel) and Fear, Space and Urban Planning: A Critical Perspective from Southern Europe (2017; Springer).

Asma Mehan, Huckabee College of Architecture, Texas Tech University, USA

Dr. Asma Mehan is an Assistant Professor at the Huckabee College of Architecture, Texas Tech University, USA, where she also directs the Architectural Humanities and Urbanism Lab (AHU_Lab). She currently serves as editor-in-chief of plaNext – Next Generation Planning. Dr. Mehan has authored three books and edited two volumes. Her debut, Kuala Lumpur: Community, Infrastructure, and Urban Inclusivity (Routledge, 2020), explores how infrastructure shapes social equity in the Malaysian metropolis. She followed this with Tehran: From Sacred to Radical (Routledge, 2022), a critical analysis of political transformation in Tehran’s public spaces. Her most recent authored book, The Affective Agency of Public Space: Social Inclusion and Community Cohesion (De Gruyter Brill, 2024), examines how public spaces in cities such as Amsterdam and Houston foster urban connection and civic interaction. She also edited After Oil: A Comparative Analysis of Oil Heritage, Urban Transformations, and Resilience Paradigms (Springer, 2025), on post-industrial city futures, and City, Public Space, and Body: The Embodied Experience of Urban Life (Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design, forthcoming November 2025).

Nadia Caruso, DIST, Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy

Nadia Caruso is Associate Professor of spatial planning at Politecnico di Torino, DIST, in Italy. She coordinates the Master of Science programme in Urban and Regional Planning and teaches urban regeneration and planning. Her research interest focuses on housing policies, social housing, urban regeneration and social innovation. She has been part of the editorial board of plaNext – Next Generation Planning from 2014 to 2022 and Chair of the AESOP Young Academics in 2015–16.

Ender Peker, Middle East Technical University, Türkiye

Ender Peker is Associate Professor of Urban Design and Planning at Middle East Technical University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the British Institute at Ankara, Türkiye. Ender is an urbanist specializing in climate-responsive urban design. His research focuses on climate-responsive urbanism, thermal comfort and the built environment, the governance of climate action, and water management. From 2012 to 2015, Ender served on the Coordination Team of AESOP Young Academics, where he was a founding editorial member of plaNext in 2014 and remained actively involved with the journal until 2022.

Esra Kut Görgün, Researcher and City Planner, İzmir Planning Agency, İzmir, Türkiye

Dr. Esra Kut Görgün is a researcher and city planner at the İzmir Planning Agency. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher at Politecnico di Milano. Her project, “Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULC): Effects on Ecosystem Services and Land Use Structure Optimization Based on Carbon Neutrality in Izmir”, was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). She received her PhD in City and Regional Planning from Dokuz Eylül University in 2023. Her research areas include rural planning, tactical urbanism, land use planning, remote sensing, and urban quality of life. More recently, her work has focused on climate neutrality, land use optimization, and ecosystem services. 

Francesca Dal Cin, Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University, Saudi Arabia

Francesca Dal Cin holds a PhD in Urban Planning from the Lisbon School of Architecture, with the thesis titled Streets by the sea: type, limit and elements. She has taught in Saudi Arabia since 2023 and is currently Assistant Professor at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University. A member of CIAUD since 2018, she has published widely on urban and coastal planning, supervises PhD and Master’s students, and regularly participates in international conferences. Since 2024, she has been serving on the editorial board of plaNext – Next Generation Planning. Her recent work includes research in Timor Leste. She is the editor of the upcoming volume Fuzzy Boundaries, exploring the interface between water and land.

References

Caruso N., & Tulumello S. (2017). plaNext – next generation planning: verso una peer-review aperta, EyesReg – Giornale di Scienze Regionali, 7(4), 143–147. www.eyesreg.it/2017/plaNext-next-generation-planning-verso-una-peer-review-aperta/

Kallio, K. P., & Riding, J. (2018). Dialogical peer-review and non-profit open-access journal publishing: welcome to Fennia. Fennia-International Journal of Geography, 196(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.70470