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Research that made an impact: highly cited articles in 2025
Posted by Ian Caswell on 2026-01-28
We’re pleased to share a curated collection of research published across the UCL Press Journals portfolio that was of special interest to our communities in 2025.
As a mission-driven, not-for-profit university press, UCL Press journals are committed to open research and scholarly excellence. This collection showcases articles that were highly cited in 2025, reflecting the reach, relevance and influence of research shared through our journals. Topics range from climate change, environmental justice and urban sustainability, to education, law, heritage, film, archaeology and global citizenship.
All UCL Press journals are Diamond Open Access – free to read, download and share, community owned and without publication fees for authors. By removing financial barriers for both readers and researchers, we support global knowledge exchange and encourage the widespread discovery and usage of impactful research.
Through this collection, we celebrate the contributions of our authors and recognise the vital role played by our editors and reviewers in advancing rigorous, trusted research and scholarship.
Jump to your preferred journal:
- Archaeology International
- Architecture_MPS
- Europe and the World: A Law Review
- Film Education Journal
- History Education Research Journal
- International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning
- International Journal of Social Pedagogy
- Jewish Historical Studies
- Journal of Bentham Studies
- The London Journal of Canadian Studies
- London Review of Education
- Radical Americas
- Research for All
- The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society
- UCL Open Environment
Archaeology International
Stonehenge and its Altar Stone: the significance of distant stone sources
Find out how geological research has traced Stonehenge’s stones to sources far beyond Salisbury Plain, including the Altar Stone’s origins in northern Scotland more than 700 km away. The article explores what these distant stone sources, architectural parallels and settlement links suggest about long-distance connections in the monument’s construction.
On not seeing like a state: rethinking ancient Honduras (The Gordon Childe Lecture for 2023)
Rethinking archaeological interpretation through the lens of freedom rather than inequality, this article draws on a case study from ancient Honduras to challenge state-centred models of social development. Using theories of anarchic social organisation, it revisits settlement patterns, social change and the role of visual culture during the Maya Classic and Terminal Classic periods.
Architecture_MPS
Plants of place: justice through (re)planting Aotearoa New Zealand's urban natural heritage
Set against urgent calls for climate action and environmental justice, this article examines how urban planting can contribute to decolonisation and spatial justice in Aotearoa New Zealand. Focusing on the concept of ‘plants of place’, authors consider how restoring pre-colonial natural heritage in urban areas may support ecological wellbeing, cultural identity and more just environmental futures.
Greened out: mitigating the impacts of eco-gentrification through community dialogue
As cities expand green infrastructure to improve resilience and environmental quality, concerns about displacement and eco-gentrification are growing. Focusing on Washington, DC, this article examines residents’ lived experiences of greening, gentrification and civic engagement, and considers how community dialogue and stakeholder involvement can support more equitable planning outcomes.
Europe and the World: A law review
In recent years, the Energy Charter Treaty has come under immense scrutiny and criticism for allegedly protecting the fossil fuel industry and undercutting sovereignty. This article considers the EU-led efforts to modernise the Treaty and questions whether the proposed reforms are sufficient to align the ECT with climate change objectives and sustainable development.
On how the ECT fuels the fossil fuel economy: Rockhopper v Italy as a case study
Authors highlight the entanglement between the suppression of ecological democracy and the expansion of fossil rights, using the Rockhopper v Italy arbitration as a case study.
Film Education Journal
Explore whether a settled film education is possible, or even desirable, in this case study reflecting on the first iteration of a new film education course that ran at Scotland’s Queen Margaret University. The study also touches on themes of co-creation and upskilling.
Teaching virtual production: the challenges of developing a formal curriculum
The rapid expansion of virtual production technologies has not only reshaped film studios but has introduced an urgent need for new training and teaching approaches. Drawing on a collaborative case study with students and industry partners, this article considers the challenges of developing a curriculum for emerging, multidisciplinary roles in film and television.
History Education Research Journal
Designing historical empathy learning experiences: a pedagogical tool for history teachers
Exploring the pedagogies that history teachers use to foster historical empathy, this article draws from interviews with secondary school history teachers in Canada. The findings highlight that historical empathy is nurtured by teachers over time using a variety of different teaching approaches and activities, tasks and projects.
This article explores how humanities subjects, including history, can furnish students with the knowledge and skills to respond in more constructive and critical ways to the climate crisis.
International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning
Responding to the double planetary crises of climate change and Covid-19, this article explores planetary citizenship education informed by Indigenous perspectives. Find out how a value-creating approach to learning can support resilience and hope through cross-curricular, whole-school engagement with relationships between learners, society and the natural world.
Futures and hope of global citizenship education
Against the backdrop of urgent global challenges, this article examines the role of hope in shaping global citizenship education. Engaging with UNESCO’s Reimagining Our Futures Together and drawing on critical education traditions, authors consider how hope can function as a transformative and political force in educational practice.
International Journal of Social Pedagogy
Who and what belongs to us? Towards a comprehensive concept of inclusion and planetary citizenship
This theoretical article asks who and what belongs to us, aiming to conceptualise planetary citizenship and identify the scale for experiences of planetary inclusion.
A human approach to restructuring the education system: why schools in England need social pedagogy
Authors in this article contend that the current schools’ system in England needs to be carefully reconsidered if we are to offer opportunities for success (in its broadest sense) to those whom our current, technocratic education system excludes.
Jewish Historical Studies
Scholarship on South African Jews: state of the field
Historical scholarship on South African Jewry is in an equivocal state. This article surveys the development of the field, examining its key themes, debates and institutional challenges, while reflecting on the balance between growing public interest and the limited academic infrastructure supporting sustained scholarship.
The making of a South African Jewish community on the Rand
Set against the political and economic upheavals surrounding the South African War, this article examines the emergence of a South African Jewish community on the Witwatersrand. Focusing on Russian Jewish immigrants in Johannesburg, it explores how shifting imperial power, mining capitalism and race and class structures shaped new forms of communal identity and belonging.
Journal of Bentham Studies
Jeremy Bentham is often overlooked in discussions about drug policy reform, despite his influential ideas on pleasure, harm and the role of the state. This article revisits Bentham’s thinking on drug use as ‘self-regarding’ conduct, showing how his arguments anticipate modern debates around harm reduction, legal rights and the limits of criminalisation.
Examining Jeremy Bentham’s relationship with the Whig reformer Samuel Romilly between 1788 and 1818, this article explores how their political collaboration developed and later fractured, casting new light on Bentham’s transition to democracy and the state of the Whig reformism during the period.
The London Journal of Canadian Studies
Canada, War and Independent Newfoundland, 1914-1949
This case study addresses the impact of war on Newfoundland, including Labrador, during the period when it was independent from Canada, and considers the role of war in Newfoundland’s eventual addition as a province of Canada in 1949.
Examined through a legal lens, this article considers the development of Canadian law in the period between the First and Second World Wars. It explores how Canada’s federal and bi-juridical legal system shaped legislative change as the country moved from colonial status towards greater autonomy, amid expanding government responsibility for social and economic policy.
London Review of Education
Research-informed teacher education, teacher autonomy and teacher agency: the example of Finland
This article highlights how Finland's rigorous, research-based teacher education system fosters autonomous and agentic teachers, contributing to the country's strong performance in international assessments like PISA.
Continuity and churn: understanding and responding to the impact of teacher turnover
Teacher turnover is a long-standing and worsening problem for schools in England. This article synthesises research suggesting that the negative impact of high turnover is linked to its corrosive impact on trust, student-centric and institutional knowledge, and collaboration and collegiality.
Radical Americas
Dilemmas for the Ecuadorian left in the shadow of Correa
Examining Ecuador’s 2023 presidential election through the legacy of Rafael Correa, this article explores how correísmo evolved. Unpacking correísmo and exploring its complicated relationships with progressive organisations and movements reveal the dilemmas that the Ecuadorian left faces as it attempts to build a lasting alternative to neoliberal capitalism.
Martians in the favela: religion and revolution in Rio de Janeiro
This article examines revolutionary Marxism as a lived, religious experience in Cold War Brazil, tracing how Judaism, Umbanda and Marxism influenced the political activism of Alfredo Syrkis and shaped cultures of militancy under military rule.
Research for All
Exploratory conversations: reflections on developing a triad interview method
Authors in this article describe their experience of developing online triad interviews within a participatory health research project that explored different stakeholders’ experiences of a young people’s cancer service in the UK.
This article provides a critical reflection on co-producing a novel speech and language therapy intervention (Better Conversations with Parkinson’s) with people living with Parkinson’s who have an interest in, or lived experience of, communication difficulties.
The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society
This article describes the transfer of the Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland archive to the Dorset History Centre and outlines plans to catalogue the collection and make it available online for the first time, improving access to these materials for researchers and the wider public.
The Archive of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland
A journey through the history of the Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland Archive from its first location in the Dorset County Museum to its current housing in the Dorset History Centre. This account shines a spotlight on some of the Archive’s most interesting features.
UCL Open Environment
A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations
A review of the key moments in the history of international climate change negotiations and what the key objectives are for future COP meetings.
In this article, authors highlight the importance of climate justice and its role within the United Nations negotiations, and ultimately in concrete action on climate change.
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