About the journal

Architecture_MPS is the official journal of the international research organization, AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society: https://amps-research.com). The organization is supported by over 200 academics internationally who support it primarily through reviewing, editing and administration. AMPS has connected academics in the fields of the built environment with scholars from the fields of media studies, political science, sociology, the arts and education across the world. It was founded with the intention of supporting research in the overlapping issues in these fields as they relate to the design, planning and management of the environments we inhabit. It sees the definition, debates and concerns of the built environment as intrinsic to those of other discourses. It sees teaching and research as complimentary components of academia and seeks to support efforts to align work in both areas.


  1. Aims and Scope
  2. What we publish
  3. Editorial process and Peer Review
  4. Acceptance criteria
  5. Open Access and Licensing
  6. Article publication charges (APCs)
  7. Discoverability and Indexing
  8. Journal metrics
  9. Journal Details
  10. Contact and Community

Aims and scope

Architecture_MPS (also called AMPS - Architecture, Media, Politics, and Society) is a fully peer-reviewed international open access journal that aims to address the growing interest in the social and political interpretation of the built environment, from a multidisciplinary perspective. The journal’s focus lies in critical and original engagement with the built environment and explicitly welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives on this focus. The territory it seeks to explore is an overlaid terrain in which the physical, material and the environmental are critically examined through the prisms offered by other fields. The journal publishes articles from planners, architects, urban designers, sociologists, artists, urban economists and lawyers specialized in land rights, and aims to address the relationship of these disciplines with the built environment.


What we publish

We welcome a wide range of content formats, including:

  • Research articles

Find out more about how to format and submit to the journal in our Author Guidelines:

Author guidelines

Editorial process and Peer Review

The Architecture_MPS operates double anonymised peer review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review. Authors should submit an anonymous version of the manuscript, removed of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review.

Reviewers cannot be from the same institution as the author, based at any funding bodies connected to the paper and cannot be recommended by authors or anyone else connected to the paper. Author(s) should submit an anonymous version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review.

Further information regarding peer review can be found on the UCL Press editorial policy pages (https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/site/editorial_policy).


Acceptance criteria

We assess submissions based on:

  • Relevance to our aims, scope and mission.
  • Clarity and soundness of argument and findings.
  • Evidence of new knowledge and meaningful contribution to the field.
  • Responsiveness to reviewer and Editorial feedback.

Submissions are unlikely to be accepted if they:

  • Are primarily commercial or self-promotional.
  • Contain excessive self-citation.
  • Lack clear conclusions or conceptual rigour.
  • Provide minimal updates on prior work.
  • Are not suitable for peer review due to clarity or fit with the journal.

Articles accepted for full publication will be those where the Editorial Board has received at least two favourable peer reviews and is satisfied that all reviewer and Editorial comments have been adequately addressed.

Experience suggests that few submissions are accepted after a single review round. The Editorial Board may decline a submission at any stage if reviewer concerns cannot be addressed to the Board’s satisfaction. In some cases, Editors may request revisions before peer review to support review effectiveness.


Preprints

Architecture_MPS is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. Authors must retain copyright to such preprints and are encouraged to link any prior posting of their paper to the final published version within the journal, if it is editorially accepted.


Open Access and Licensing

All content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. This ensures:

  • Free access for readers worldwide.
  • Retention of copyright by authors.
  • Maximum flexibility for reuse, adaptation and sharing.

We follow the Budapest Open Access Initiative and are committed to author rights and open scholarship. Our Author Contributor Agreement outlines full terms for publication:

Author Contributor Agreement

Article publication charges (APCs)

Architecture_MPS is a Diamond Open Access journal, meaning that UCL Press does not levy any Article-Processing Charges (APCs) for submission or publication.

UCL Press covers all the costs to publishing every article and publishing is free at every stage:

  • No submission fees
  • No peer review fees
  • No publication fees

This reflects our commitment to equity and non-profit publishing, especially for authors with limited funding or from underrepresented sectors.


Discoverability and Indexing

UCL Press works with subject specific indexers to deposit published articles in relevant repositories and search databases. Articles published in Architecture_MPS are indexed in:


Journal metrics

We are committed to the responsible use of metrics and strongly encourage all readers, authors, reviewers, and Editors to read through our statement about the use of metrics across the journal, available online at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/site/editorial_policy/#METRICS.


Citation metrics
  • Impact Factor (2024) 0.5
  • Q1 (Impact Factor quartile - Architecture)
  • Five year Impact Factor (2024) 0.5
  • Scopus CiteScore (2024) 1.2
  • Scopus SJR (2024) 0.231
  • Scopus SNIP (2024) 0.715

Journal Details

ISSN: 2050-9006
Publication frequency: Architecture_MPS publishes one article every month.


Published by

UCL Press, University College London (UCL)
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK

journals.uclpress.co.uk

uclpressjournals@ucl.ac.uk


Contact and Community

We are a community-led journal. Whether you’re submitting, reviewing, or simply reading, we invite you to be part of our network.

All general enquiries should be sent to the Executive Editor, Dr Graham Cairns, at:
gc [at] amps-research.com


Stay connected:

Bluesky: @uclpressjournals.bsky.social‬‬‬

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ucl-press-journals