[Associate Editor] New Journal of Built Environment and Power Systems (BEPS)

I am pleased to join Built Environment and Power Systems (BEPS) as an Associate Editor and to share the journal’s first Call for Papers. Launched in 2026, BEPS is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal focused on the increasingly important interface between high-performance buildings and modern power systems.

For me, joining at this stage is particularly meaningful. I am not simply joining another established journal. I am becoming involved at the formation stage of a scientific venue, with an opportunity to help shape a field that increasingly overlaps with my own research in building performance, electrification, resilience, energy systems, urban energy modeling, and AI.

This is about field shaping and community building. BEPS can help define the emerging building-power-system interface, bringing together topics such as grid-interactive buildings, distributed energy resources, heat pumps, storage, resilient cooling, urban energy systems, smart grids, digital twins, building performance simulation, and physics-informed AI. At the same time, developing the journal creates a network of authors, reviewers, editors, and research groups working across these increasingly interconnected areas.

There is also a longer-term strategic dimension. Rather than waiting for this research intersection to mature and then joining an established publication ecosystem, we have an opportunity to help create the publication platform that this emerging field needs. If BEPS develops successfully, it can become a natural scientific home for this community. For editors who also publish in the field, maintaining rigorous conflict-of-interest procedures and independent handling of their own submissions will be essential to that credibility.

But a new journal has to earn its scientific standing. I see this as a 10-year journey rather than a promise:

2026-2027 | Build the foundation. The priority is rigorous and independent peer review, research integrity, publication regularity, strong metadata, international authorship, and consistently substantive papers. These are directly aligned with the quality dimensions considered by Web of Science and Scopus.

2027-2029 | Establish indexing and visibility. With sufficient publication history and consistently strong content, the journal can seek evaluation by Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection. Scopus no longer imposes its former two-year condition for newly launched journals, although sufficient publication history is still required for meaningful evaluation.

2029-2032 | Build citation influence. Web of Science uses 24 quality criteria for new journal evaluation. Journals passing them can enter ESCI, and ESCI journals are eligible for a Journal Impact Factor and inclusion in unified JCR category rankings. From there, sustained citation influence, content significance, and strong author and editorial networks become increasingly important.

2032-2036 | Aim for sustained Q1-level performance. Q1 cannot be promised or simply applied for. It depends on the journal's eventual JCR category and its relative citation performance. The objective therefore should not merely be obtaining an Impact Factor, but developing a journal whose work is sufficiently rigorous, useful, visible, and influential to compete internationally over the long term.

This makes my involvement an investment in field building, scientific networks, editorial experience, and the future publication ecosystem around the convergence of buildings and power systems. The opportunity is to have an early seat at the table and help establish the scientific standards and identity of that platform from the beginning. I am particularly pleased to undertake this journey alongside a diverse international Editorial Board:

Executive Editor: George Xydis.

Associate Editors: Matthaios Santamouris, Shady Attia, Yi Zong, Mehdi Mehpoya, Ching Deb, Muhyiddine Jad, Tiziana Susca, Muhammad Asif, Francesco Nocera, Hongwei Wu, and Tamer Khatib.

Editorial Board Members: Xu Han, Mahtem Ucal, Jaime Roset Calzada, Hibatuma Bayera Malessa, Anıl Can Duman, Dimitrios Apostolou, Nabil Elminshawy, Ewa Lazarczyk Carlson, Ali Soltani, Xiao Lin, Jungmin Han, Ramo Simson, Zhihong Pang, and Francesco Sommese.

📢 The Call for Papers is now open: Built Environment and Power Systems (BEPS)

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