Report ISUF business meetings, Stockholm, September 2006

Reports

All reports have been published in the Journal Urban Morphology.

ISUF Council met on Sunday September 3 immediately before the conference organized by the Nordic Network of Urban Morphology and ISUF at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. The conference concluded with an ISUF General Meeting, and this report covers both meetings and all business.

Secretary-General’s report

Michael Conzen reported that his major activity on behalf of ISUF in the past year had been in the preparation of two ISUF conferences: Stockholm (2006) and Ouro Preto, Brazil (2007). A number of other venues had also been investigated. Close collaboration was necessary between himself and the local organizers in order to structure and deliver high-quality international conference programmes.

ISUF’s previous pattern of alternating small seminars and major conferences had not been followed recently owing to the opportunity in 2004 to link with the International Geographical Union meeting in Glasgow, but it was felt worthwhile to return to this sequence, and it was hoped that Ouro Preto would re-establish the ‘large conference’ format.

Michael Conzen then reminded ISUF that his term of office had been set at two years, and he was therefore stepping down as Secretary-General. He thanked ISUF’s officers and council members who had worked closely with him during a challenging period. In return, he was thanked for his hard work on ISUF’s behalf.

Treasurer’s report

Keith Lilley was unable to attend the meeting but sent a report indicating that ISUF’s finances were healthy, but that the future pattern of income and the link between subscriptions and conference fees needed to be reviewed.

ISUF’s main expenditure continues to be the production of Urban Morphology. In recent years, the production costs have risen such that they now virtually equal income. It would therefore be important to generate additional income from conference ‘profits’. In order to simplify accounting procedures and communication with members it was agreed that the subscription year for individual members should move to January-December.

Some effort had gone into investigating the Paypal system for electronic payments, but this was not adopted owing to unresolved concerns about security. The Treasurer recommended that members should make greater use of the IBAN/ SWIFT electronic bank transfer system, which was well established in Europe.

Editor’s report

Jeremy Whitehand reported that the journal’s move to a new binding, with other minor format changes, and the increasing electronic delivery of copy to the printer, had gone well. However, the aims established last year for increasing diversity in coverage needed further work, although quality and manuscript supply were acceptable. Submissions of papers from Africa, India and Latin America would be particularly welcome to promote regional diversity in the journal’s contents. Furthermore, if members wanted more papers published, or different topics covered, the editorial team would be delighted to receive submissions.

The new binding had allowed more pages in each issue, and the refereeing process had remained swift: the average time lag between submission of a paper and decision was now only 1.5 months. About 50 per cent of submissions had been accepted in the past year. This was a slight rise, but still not atypical for refereed journals in the social sciences.

Last year it had been suggested that thematic reviews should be sought, and two were currently in progress. National reviews were still being produced. Although Viewpoints had been forth-coming, there had been relatively few in recent issues that responded to issues raised by the journal’s papers (or indeed other Viewpoints). This was felt to be a useful function of the Viewpoint section, and more were encouraged.

Finally, more subscriptions from institutional libraries were encouraged. The journal remains competitive in price for institutions, but the revenue is very significant in funding the improvements to the journal’s quality.

Appointment of Secretary-General

ISUF Council unanimously approved the appointment of Nicola Marzot (Università degli Studi di Ferrara), although it noted that his substantial commitments in Ferrara and Delft in the coming year meant that individual Council members would need to support the new Secretary-General’s work.

Webmaster’s report

Elwin Koster sent a report on the progress being made to develop the usability and content of the ISUF website, now www.urbanform.org. The visibility through normal search engines had improved significantly. Technical changes had been made to improve accessibility and to facilitate future redesigns. Online access to the papers of Urban Morphology had improved, and members will have access to scanned pages of all issues except the most recent three years.

Regional associations

Giuseppe Strappa had been investigating possible regional groupings of members: how these might work, how they might be organized, and the relationship between a national organization and ‘ISUF International’ as the parent body. While this investigation was ongoing, events had moved forward and the ‘Nordic Network of Urban Morphology’ had already been successfully launched. A draft constitution for affiliated regional groups was discussed, and it is hoped that ‘ISUF Italia’ will be formed during the coming year. More such groups are encouraged, and it was hoped that the 2007 Ouro Preto conference may stimulate a Latin American group.

ISUF Working Papers

A proposal from Phil Jones for an on-line Working Paper series was discussed and approved, and he was immediately appointed as its Editor. This will be developed via the ISUF website. It was suggested that the first three papers could be those produced by the ISUF Working Party on Legislation and Urban Form, which had not previously been available in electronic format.

Peter J. Larkham, School of Property, Construction and Planning, UCE Birmingham, Perry Barr, Birmingham B42 2SU, UK. E-mail: peter.larkham@uce.ac.uk