Journal of European Landscapes

As a result of growing economic interdependence and political integration, Europe becomes ever more important as a spatial framework for research. This is particularly true for landscape research. The development of landscapes is highly dependent on the politics of the European Union. Policies on landscape and heritage are increasingly influenced by international cooperation.

For disciplines with a spatial dimension, such as geography, archaeology, landscape research and heritage studies, this results in comparative research in regions in Europe and, sometimes, on Europe as a whole. As a result, there is a growing awareness of the European dimensions of landscape and heritage. Although landscape is a theme that is increasingly studied on a European level (in fact, landscape is often described as a typical European theme), there is no journal that focuses on landscape and heritage.

The Journal of European Landscapes fills this gap by stimulating and promoting both empirical research and reflexive thinking on the history and heritage of the landscapes of Europe. In our opinion, the proposed journal should focus on the history and heritage of landscape. For the historical dimension, the tradition of ‘landscape history and archaeology’, a successful research tradition on the British Isles, could be seen as a good basis. This tradition is also of growing importance in continental Europe. Heritage, defined as the present use of the past, is a good addition to this as it connects historical research with modern planning and management.

Journal of European Landscapes is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal launched to accelerate research and free information exchange in European landscape research. In addition to local and national focused journals the Journal of European Landscapes wants to stim­ulate debate, research and other forms of international cooperation.

Journal of European Landscapes publishes papers with an international comparative perspective on (rural, urban as well as industrial) landscapes in Europe, as well as European landscapes elsewhere. The Journal of European Landscapes also wants to document research projects in order to enable the academic community to access, discuss and scrutinize the value and meanings of the outcomes for future landscape research, policy and practice.

Journal of European Landscapes aims to offer a platform for interdisciplinary research into landscape. The historical and heritage dimensions of landscape are important, but the spatial, physical, visual, rep­resentational, philosophical and other landscape di­mensions are also included. In many cases this requires interdisciplinary research across academic disciplines ranging from archaeology, anthropology and art his­tory, to geography, earth sciences, economics, tourism studies and sociology. The Journal of European Landscapes aims to publish studies on the historical and heritage aspects of land­scape against the backdrop of challenges that Europe is facing today: the challenges of European unification, international cooperation and conflicts, migration, climate change, energy transition, increase of tourism, digitization and urbanization.