Environment and Planning F
Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice seeks to plug a gap in current publishing in Geography. It aims to attract agenda-setting papers that break new ground by forging connections between cutting-edge research in all areas of the subject. It is a whole-of-discipline journal that makes a virtue of Geography’s considerable diversity and vitality. Its papers, however specialised, will speak to the widest possible readership of researchers in Geography and also cognate fields like Planning, Sociology, Environmental Management and Environmental Science. Contributions will use comparative analysis, critique, creative thinking, counter-factual reasoning and other mechanisms to achieve ‘value added’ in key cross-cutting areas, notably the philosophical underpinnings of research; the definition and uses of theory; the employment of various models; of various research methods and methodologies; and the link of research to practical impacts of various kinds (for instance, via public policy).
The journal exists to create new pathways that allow novel and productive patterns of thinking to emerge across and between Geography many sub-disciplinary communities. This will generate new ideas and modes of working across divisions in the discipline and leverage Geography’s potential to respond to the complex challenges and opportunities of our time in original and innovative ways. EPF aspires to be a ‘weaving’ journal rather than simply a place where human, environmental geographers can publish with limited cognisance of each other’s work.
The journal publishes research papers, commentaries on these papers and periodic ‘perspective’ articles that are more speculative or reflective. It also publishes book review forums.
We welcome suggestions for special sections and issues.
| Noel Castree | University of Manchester, UK |
| Agnieszka Leszczynski | Western University, Canada |
| Zarina Patel | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Tim Schwanen | University of Oxford, UK |
| J. Anthony Stallins | University of Kentucky, USA |
| Christine Bierman | University of Colorado, USA |
| Gary Brierley | University of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand |
| Jonathan Corcoran | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Michelle Daigle | University of Toronto, Canada |
| David Demeritt | King’s College London, UK |
| Jeremy Diem | Georgia State University |
| LaToya Eaves | University of Tennessee |
| Sarah Elwood | University of Washington |
| Karen Fisher | University of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand |
| Jennifer Fitchett | University of Witwatersrand, South Africa |
| Matthew Gandy | University of Cambridge |
| Chris Gibson | University of Wollongong, Australia |
| Julie Guthman | University of California, Santa Cruz |
| Jouni Hakli | Tampere University |
| Sarah Knuth | Durham University, UK |
| Uma Kothari | Manchester University, UK |
| Mei-Po Kwan | Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Rebecca Lave | Indiana University |
| George Lin | The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China |
| Weidong Liu | Chinese Academy of Sciences, China |
| Shuaib Lwasa | Univ of Makerere |
| Darla Munroe | Ohio State University, USA |
| Rachel Pain | University of Newcastle, UK |
| Hester Parr | Glasgow University |
| Beth Perry | University of Sheffield, UK |
| Jonathan Rigg | Bristol University |
| Eric Sheppard | University California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Brandi Summers | University of California, Berkeley, USA |
| Juanita Sundberg | University of British Columbia, Canada |
| Andrew Tucker | University of Cape Town |
| Jane Wills | Exeter University |
| Dariusz Wójcik | Oxford University |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods, and Practice
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/epf to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Environment and Planning F will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Environment and Planning F will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the Journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the Journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Identifiable information
4.4 Supplemental material
4.5 Reference style
4.6 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Before submitting your manuscript to Environment and Planning F, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice publishes papers that advance understanding and capability across Geography, linking to cognate fields in the social sciences, the humanities and the geosciences. Geography is a 'wide band' discipline of great vitality. It focuses on people, technology and environment (built and natural) at the local, national and supra-national scales spanning short, medium and longer-term time horizons. Studies of location, connectivity and inter-place movement within and across territories and their borders are unified by common foci and concepts that enable traffic and translation between its sub-fields, including scale, place, space, networks, systems, landscape and mobility. Geography's intellectual diversity creates potential for shared learning through acts of demonstration, debate, criticism, methodological weaving, and comparison. The journal welcomes papers from any area of physical, human, environmental geography. Contributions should aim to be catalytic, progressing understanding and capability among the widest spectrum of readers. Submissions may choose to focus on important emerging topics; philosophical frameworks; theories and models; research methods, research design and praxis; public policy and stakeholder engagement; and on ethics, critique and normative reasoning. Papers about the history, present and future of one or more fields of geographical research are also welcome, providing that they are set in a wider academic and/or real-world context.
Environment and Planning F aspires to be a 'go to' journal for readers across the discipline of Geography within a few short years of its launch by providing a venue for innovative scholarship that straddles, navigates through, and cuts across Geography's sub-disciplinary fields, theoretical foundations, philosophical frameworks, methodological approaches and insights about engagement with research users or beneficiaries. Papers should strive to have a formative impact and be written to speak to audiences beyond sub-disciplinary specialists already knowledgeable about the issues, debates or insights at stake. Empirically-based papers and case studies are welcome to the extent they generate wider understanding beyond the data or context in question. The journal’s papers will have a signature quality of fostering communication and mutual learning that brings internal and external benefits for the discipline not currently found in other journals.
Research articles: Environment and Planning F primarily publishes refereed research papers of no more than 10,000 words. Papers can be submitted as a stand-alone contributions, as part of special/theme sections or as part of special/theme issues. Research articles can be largely empirical, methodological or conceptual in focus. The key requirement is ‘connectivity’: that is, they should speak to researchers in ways to engender learning beyond, as much as within, the immediate topic area of the paper. For papers of all kinds, we strong encourage clear statements about the logic and quality of the arguments, evidence and insights adduced.
Perspectives: now and then the journal may publish shorter articles that offer a novel angle or insight into an issue of wide research relevance in Geography (human, physical and/or environmental). These can be more speculative than a normal research article and will usually not be less than 4000 words and not more than 5000 words in length.
Commentaries on published papers: for special sections or issues of Environment and Planning F, the editors will often seek to commission reflective analyses of a set of the published papers. These analyses will normally be no more than 2500 words long. Unsolicited commentaries on papers may be published from time to time. Commentaries foster dialogue about and mutual understanding of new research insights.
Environment and Planning F will publish appendices to articles (e.g. data sets; detailed methodological statements) where appropriate, though online only
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Environment and Planning F adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
As standard practice, Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested reviewers.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods, and Practice requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods, and Practice encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Environment and Planning F and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods, and Practice offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online.
4.3 Identifiable information
Where a journal uses double-anonymize peer review, authors are required to submit:
- A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymised. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
- A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymised material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
See https://sagepub.com/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-anonymize-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Environment and Planning F adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.
The journal requests that authors use the bibliography of the submission to highlight and annotate up to eight key references.
The journal requests that authors of EPF articles identify up to 6 key references in the bibliography, with an accompanying explanation.
Bibliographies are a key resource for article readers and the highlighted articles allow authors to direct readers to noteworthy contributions in the field in question.
Please follow this guidance and format your references as per this example:
Bulkeley H, Betsill M: Revisiting the urban politics of climate change. Environmental Politics 2013, 22:136-154.
This article revisits the multi-level governance perspective and analyses the urban politics of climate change. The authors point to the growing influence of non-state actors in shaping urban climate governance and recognize the parallel development of municipal voluntarism and strategic state action. The article is significant because it was among the first to theorise the key role of extra-governmental bodies in climate change governance within and among cities.
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Environment and Planning F is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/epf to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Environment and Planning F editorial office as follows:
noel.castree@uts.edu.au; ph. Australia 0490860797
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com