WHAT’S THE FUS?

We’re delighted to announce “The Future of Urban Studies” (FUS), a new initiative from the Urban Studies Journal dedicated to reflecting on the current state of urban studies and imagining where it might go next.

As one of the longest-standing and most influential journals in the field, Urban Studies has played an important role in fostering debate, advancing research, and connecting scholars across disciplines for more than six decades. At a time of rapid changes in academic publishing, shifting institutional contexts for research, and new intellectual agendas emerging across disciplines, we believe it is important to create space for collective reflection on how the journal can continue to play a leading role in shaping the field.

Running between May 2026 and November 2027, this initiative will convene a year-long conversation on the context and future of urban studies, focusing both on the discipline as an interdisciplinary field and on the strategic positioning of the Urban Studies Journal.

We will host a series of curated workshop discussions directly linked to tangible journal outputs and organised alongside major international conferences, while ensuring online engagement for those unable to attend. These meetings will involve members of the editorial team, selected authors from the journal, leading scholars from across the field, and emerging voices representing new intellectual directions in urban studies, and they will initially centre around three broad thematic areas:

1. The “field” of urban studies:

What are the intellectual contours of urban studies itself? How is the field evolving across themes, disciplines, methodologies, and empirical focus? How does interdisciplinary collaboration shape urban studies, and how does the field continue to intersect with geography, planning, sociology, political science, architecture, and other disciplines?

2. The “institutions” of urban studies:

What are the institutional environments that support and shape urban research? How are changes within universities (including funding pressures, evolving career structures, and shifting institutional priorities) reshaping the environment for urban research? How do urban scholars engage with policy, governance, and practice? How may the institutional landscape of urban studies evolve in the coming decade?

3. The “communication” of urban studies:

How is knowledge in urban studies produced, communicated, and disseminated?

These discussions will allow the journal to reflect critically on its own role within the broader publishing ecosystem and identify opportunities for innovation. Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing ideas on these themes, reflections from workshop discussions, and conversations and calls for engagement to help us think about the future direction of urban studies.

This initiative is not limited to the USJ collective: we welcome proposals and submissions for Debates and Critical Commentaries that tackle field, institutions and communication challenges and opportunities for urban studies, as well as proposals to co-host – along with the journal’s editors and international corresponding editors – conversations and debates that reflect on this state of the field.

The future of urban studies is a conversation. We invite you to join it!

For questions, please email our Editor-in-Chief Michele Acuto at michele.acuto@urbanstudiesjournal.com, or our Managing Editors Yingling Fan (yingling.fan@urbanstudiesjournal.com) and Jon Bannister (jon.bannister@urbanstudiesjournal.com)