Orientation

Urbani izziv is intended for the dissemination of new knowledge and discussion of contemporary spatial planning issues. Until 2008, each issue had a leading theme. Since 2009 the issues have no longer been thematic. Each issue contains contributions on various spatial themes addressed from various fields and disciplines (e.g., urbanism, geography, architecture, landscape architecture, surveying, sociology, economics, etc.). These articles present the research interests of the authors within their fields, including:

• Spatial planning
• Urban planning and design
• Landscape planning and design
• Regional development
• Urban renewal
• Management of urban area
• Natural and cultural heritage protection
• Environmental protection
• Spatial information technology
• Housing studie
• Traffic studie
• Demographic studies for spatial planning
• Accessibility for the disabled

Publisher

Urbani izziv is a scholarly journal published by the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia. It is published by the Institute’s own press, named "Urbani izziv − publikacije". The first issue of the journal was published in December 1989. Despite its major focus on social science topics, the orientation of the journal is interdisciplinary, encompassing developments and new directions in research fields, thereby strengthening, broadening, improving and synergising skills. In addition to Slovenian authors, the editors strive to ensure a balanced participation of authors, also from other countries in the region and worldwide.

Unique features of the journal

Urbani izziv is the most comprehensive journal in Central and Eastern Europe in the field of spatial planning. The journal’s most distinguishing feature is its international scope in the dissemination of new knowledge and discussion of contemporary spatial planning issues. Currently, the field of spatial planning is dominated by Anglo-Saxon scientific journals, which tend to primarily focus on issues that are relevant to countries that are normally categorised under this linguistic group. Under these circumstances, scholars from other countries (especially Central and East European) find it very difficult to get their articles published in these journals. Articles submitted by authors from non-English speaking countries are often rejected not due to poor quality, but because they deal with issues that are, in most cases, less relevant to the wider public, towards which the Anglo-Saxon journals are orientated. On the contrary, Urbani izziv offers an opportunity for the publication of top quality scholarly articles by authors dealing with spatial planning issues in Central and Eastern Europe and other parts of the world.

Frequency

The journal is published twice a year. The first issue is published in June, and the second in December.

Language

Urbani izziv is published in two languages: all contributions are published in Slovenian and English.

Structure

Urbani izziv is divided into two parts:

The first (longer) part is titled "Articles" and includes original research and review articles. This section also includes articles presenting methodologies and techniques in one of these categories.

The second (shorter) part of the journal is titled "Reviews and information" and contains reviews, announcements (e.g., announcements of books, projects, events, lectures, conferences, etc.), library information and other material.

High-quality double-blind peer review

Articles in the first part of the journal (Articles) undergo double-blind peer review. In every peer-review process, we aim for two expert reviews of every article, ensuring quality and fairness. The material published in the second part of the journal (Reviews and information) is not peer-reviewed.

Open access and high visibility

Urbani izziv is an open-access journal; all published material is freely and immediately available to read, share, and adapt with the appropriate credit citation (CC BY license). The journal is available on our website and abstracted by relevant services and bibliographical databases.

We charge no publication fee (APC) and no submission fee.

Indexing and inclusion into bibliographical database

Abstracts and full texts of articles are included in the Slovenian COBISS database and the Digital Library of Slovenia (dLib.si), as well as in the international bibliographic databases: SCOPUS Elsevier, ERIH PLUS, EBSCOhost (Art & Architecture Complete, Academic Search Complete), ESCI (Clarivate Analytics), ProQuest (ProQuest Central, ProQuest Research Library, ProQuest SciTech Journals, ProQuest Engineering Journals, ProQuest Technology Journals, ProQuest Political Science, ProQuest Environmental Science Journals, ProQuest 5000, Sociological Abstracts, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts), CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library), IBSS (Intenational Bibliography of Social Sciences), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences), GEODOK (Geographic Literature Database), EZB (Electronic Journals Library), CGP (Current Geographical Publications), ICONDA (International Construction Database), DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), AVERY index, DRJI (Directory of Research Journals Indexing), PRORCH (Promotion of Research), CORE (COnnecting REpositories), Virtual Science Libraries (VSL Open), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Academic Journals Database, Sciencegate, Index Copernicus International, J-Gate, libsearch (Open access digital libraries), Georgetown University Library, Columbia University Libraries, University of Queensland Library, University of Arkansas Libraries, University of Tennessee Libraries, Johns Hopkins University Libraries, Syracuse University Library, Feng Chia University Library, University of the West Library, York University Libraries, University of Rochester Medical Center Edward G. Miner Library, Wells College, Monash University Library, National Chengchi University Libraries, Kun Shan University Library, Macao Polytechnic Institute Library, ChaoYung University of Technology Library and Genamics JournalSeek. Urbani izziv is registered in the media register kept by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia under serial number 595.