City Space Architecture in a partnership with the Robert Bosch Foundation
Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash
In 2020 City Space Architecture entered in a partnership with the Robert Bosch Foundation based in Stuttgart (Germany) aimed at supporting the development of our The Journal of Public Space. The Robert Bosch Stiftung is one of the major foundations in Europe that is associated with a private company: following the legacy of Robert Bosch, one of the greatest German entrepreneurs of the 20th century, for almost 60 years the Foundation has continued his commitment to social and societal causes in a contemporary form.
This partnership lies on a common interest on public space: in May 2020 the Robert Bosch Foundation published the results of the project Participatory design of people-centered cities, developed in collaboration with Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), aimed at defining how to transform our habitats in a just, sustainable and livable way. Read more here.
The support of the Robert Bosch Foundation is an outstanding recognition of the mission City Space Architecture is pursuing through The Journal of Public Space, namely producing public knowledge on public space. This is particularly important while we live the unprecedented and difficult times of the Covid-19 pandemic: public space has been deeply challenged and the majority of the world has lived in isolation, experiencing feelings of distress and loneliness.
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This partnership was the opportunity to expand the impact and quality of The Journal of Public Space, through several technical activities, such as:
- indexing in DOAJ, the Directory of Open Access Journals;
- preparation of contents and review of metadata for indexing in Scopus, an expertly curated abstract & citation database (currenlty underway);
- upgrade to the latest version of OJS - Open Journal Systems (3.3), the publishing platform of the journal, as part of the PKP - Public Knowlege Project;
- participation in the project JASPER, for digital preservation of contents of diamond open access journals.
At the same time, we focused on the development of several special issues, in 2020 and 2021, in cooperation with Universities and research institutions, ensuring diversity and inclusion, for contents and authors. In particular, we published:
- Vol. 5 n. 3 (2020): A Year without Public Space under the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Vol. 5 n. 4 (2020): Art and Activism in Public Space
- Vol. 6 n. 1 (2021): Re-visioning Places of Public Gathering in the Contemporary Arab Urbanism
- Vol. 6 n. 2 (2021): Mapping Resilient Communities (currently in preparation)
- Vol. 6 n. 3 (2021): Mapping Urban Injustices in Public Space: Challenges and Opportunities (currently in preparation)
Check contents from the archives of The Journal of Public Space.
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We are extremely grateful to the Robert Bosch Foundation for the generous support and for giving us the opportunity to continue our challening and ambitious mission to spread awareness on the importance of public space culture, showcasing best research and practices and informing discussion about the more and more important issues related to public spaces in our changing and evolving societies.
