The Call for Contributions is out now!
We invite you to send your contribution until September 30th 2026.
Sure Solutions is a diamond open-access publication series, published by HafenCity University Hamburg, dedicated to transdisciplinary and transformational research on sustainable urban and regional development. The series provides a curated platform for application-oriented research, reflective practice, and knowledge exchange at the interface of science, policy, planning, civil society, and local implementation. The publication series aims to deepen the understanding of how sustainable development of urban regions is interpreted, negotiated, and put into practice in diverse local contexts around the world.
The third edition of SURE Solutions – Sustainable Development of Urban Regions is dedicated to “Agents of Change in the Sustainable Development of Urban Regions: People, Institutions, Platforms and Practices of Implementation.” Building on previous editions on transdisciplinary challenges and the transfer of strategies and solutions, this issue turns to the actors, structures, tools, and practices that enable ideas, research findings, policy ambitions, and local initiatives to become transformative action.
Sustainable urban development is not achieved through technical solutions, planning concepts, or policy frameworks alone. Strategies, datasets, prototypes, regulations, design approaches, and recommendations matter, but their transformative potential depends on the people and institutions that interpret, adapt, negotiate, implement, maintain, scale, or contest them. Urban transformation is therefore not only a question of what solutions are developed, but also of who carries them forward, how they are embedded in local systems, and under which conditions they can generate lasting effects.
This issue invites contributions from authors around the world working in research, planning, public administration, policy, civil society, community practice, design, education, development cooperation, or implementation-oriented projects. While SURE Solutions emerges from the SURE funding priority and its focus on sustainable urban regions in Southeast Asia, China, and Germany, this call explicitly welcomes perspectives beyond the SURE programme, including cross-regional and globally reflective perspectives.
Publication Schedule
- Call for contributions July 2026
- Deadline for contributions / manuscripts 30.09.2026
- Review Process and notification of publication acceptance until 15.11.2026
- paper rework until 31.12.2026
- Production of online and print edition until 06.2027
- Publication in print by June/July 2027
Format
- Research Paper, Solution or Activity Report, News Article, Snap Shot
Contributions to SURE Solutions III may take one of the following formats. Across all formats, authors are invited to address the role of agents of change in sustainable urban and regional development. Contributions should show how people, institutions, platforms, tools, partnerships, or practices enable, shape, challenge, or sustain implementation processes in specific local contexts.
Contact
Editors: Dr. Katharina M. Borgmann, Prof. Jörg Rainer Noennig, HCU Hamburg, and Prof. Frank Schwartze, TH Luebeck, contact us via: [email protected]