The publication
The Book of Future Environments Research is published by AUT under ISSN 2816-0673 on Tuwhera, the open access publishing platform of the AUT Library. He leads its editorial team, with Dr Mahesh Babu as Corresponding Editor, Professor Amirhosein Ghaffarianhoseini as Editor, and Dr Mani Poshdar, Dr Funmilayo Ebun Rotimi and Dr Dat Doan as Associate Editors.
Its purpose
A school publication of this kind serves several purposes at once. It gives staff and postgraduate researchers a citable, open outlet for work in progress and applied studies that may not suit international journals. It makes the School’s research visible to industry partners, councils and prospective students in one place. And it builds editorial experience among early career academics, who learn to review and edit by doing so.
Open access matters particularly for applied built environment research, whose most important readers, practitioners and public agencies, often do not have journal subscriptions.
Significance
Founding and leading the publication is part of his wider work in editorial leadership, which includes associate editorships of international journals, guest editorships of special issues and lead editorship of proceedings with Springer Nature. Here the editorial role serves the School directly, as an institutional record of what its researchers are doing.
Building editorial capacity
The editorial team draws on early and mid career academics in the School, who gain experience in reviewing, editing and publishing that strengthens their own research careers and their capacity to serve international journals. In that sense the publication is also a form of mentoring, carried out through the practical work of producing a scholarly record.