About

Aims and scope

Infrastructure Complexity aims to understand, shape and design complex systems and services that emerge from a collection of interacting physical objects and social actors in an urban environment. It aims to propel sustainable urban systems, through urban metabolism, and is rooted in the fundamental understanding of urban (infrastructure) systems and services.

The intertwining of our technical and societal processes has been taken to great lengths. Technical, physical and human components are increasingly interrelated: the high degree of dependence of our urban society on a functioning energy supply, the far-reaching penetration of ICT systems and services in the control of our society, and the impact of electrification on mobility. Such urban ecosystems need to adopt and accommodate technology and innovation and they need to adapt to dynamic economic, regulatory and social value systems and regimes, as well as to changing global trade patterns. This requires a meta-discipline, as a collection of disciplines, that understands the engineering intricacies of the technology, as well as the economic and governance complexities of such systems.

Novel engineering systems also bring along the perspective of new service systems. Whether they are designed to enhance individual safety, health and human well-being, promote sustainability, or increase productivity, technological and engineering systems have to be understood as part of a complex urban system. This creates fundamental uncertainties and inherent risks, as well as opportunities for robust and agile engineering, entrepreneurship, and innovation and sustained strategies of adaptation.

Benefits of publishing with SpringerOpen

High visibility

Infrastructure Complexity's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

Infrastructure Complexity offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Infrastructure Complexity and SpringerOpen.

Flexibility

Online publication in Infrastructure Complexity gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Infrastructure Complexity are included in article alerts and regular email updates.
In addition, articles published in Infrastructure Complexity may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Infrastructure Complexity.

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Infrastructure Complexity retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work (for further details, see the copyright and license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from SpringerOpen, please click here.

Open access

All articles published by the Infrastructure Complexity are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in the Infrastructure Complexity you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the SpringerOpen copyright and license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, SpringerOpen can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Infrastructure Complexity therefore levies an article-processing charge of £785/$1230/€1000 for each article accepted for publication. If the corresponding author's institution participates in our open access membership program, some or all of the publication cost may be covered (more details available on the membership page). We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

Springer Open provides a free open access funding support service to help authors discover and apply for article processing charge funding. Visit our OA funding and policy support page to view our list of research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs, and to learn more about our email support service.

Indexing services

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by SpringerOpen on SpringerLink.
We are working closely with relevant indexing services including PubMed Central and Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) to ensure that articles published in Infrastructure Complexity will be available in their databases when appropriate.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

Infrastructure Complexity operates a single-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers are aware of the names and affiliations of the authors, but the reviewer reports provided to authors are anonymous.

The benefit of single-blind peer review is that it is the traditional model of peer review that many reviewers are comfortable with, and it facilitates a dispassionate critique of a manuscript.

Submitted manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or more experts who will be asked to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to Infrastructure Complexity should adhere to SpringerOpen's editorial policies.

Once your article is accepted, it will be processed by production and published shortly afterwards. In some cases, articles may be held for a short period of time prior to publication. If you have any concerns or particular requirements please contact the Journal.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Citing articles in Infrastructure Complexity

Articles in Infrastructure Complexity should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. Infrastructure Complex [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Infrastructure Complex 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies .