New developments and new discourse on architecture and urbanism

Over the past seven years and since Archnet-IJAR has published its first issue in March 2007 the journal has managed to position itself on the map of web publishing in architecture and urbanism. Following a comprehensive process of academic review of articles and research work submitted to the journal, it has succeeded to secure its position in various databases. One of the unique features of the Archnet-IJAR was, and still is, the voluntary work nature of its editors and reviewers where no funds are involved at all in managing or reviewing or editing the submissions before publishing. Another unique feature is that the journal since the beginning was, and still is, made available for free without subscription fees or publishing fees. A third feature of Archnet-IJAR is the opportunity it offers to young academics, PhD scholars, reaching across the boundaries of cultures and regions. Key highlights in the past seven years are important to note. In qualitative and quantitative terms the journal has made significant achievements. In terms of quality the journal became part of important data and index bases including Avery index to Architectural Periodicals, EBSCO-Current Abstracts-Art and Architecture, INTUTE, Directory of Open Access Journals, Pro-Quest, Scopus-Elsevier and many university library databases. In terms of quantity 20 issues were published in 7 volumes (Figure 1). The 20 issues combined include 283 papers categorized in two categories: 237 original research articles and 46 book reviews and trigger articles. I should mention here that the issues produced by Archnet-IJAR cover almost every corner of the globe whether in terms of the context that they address or in terms of its authors’ affiliations and cultural backgrounds