My final editorial

Citation

Hoxley, M. (2013), "My final editorial", Structural Survey, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2013.11031aaa.001

My final editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Structural Survey, Volume 31, Issue 1.

This is the very last editorial I will be writing for Structural Survey, as I have decided that the time is right to step down from the role of Co-Editor. I have been involved with the editing of this journal for the last 17 years. For three years I fulfilled the role of Academic Editor with the remit of sourcing papers from academia. The main Editor at that time was the late Tony Poole and when Tony retired at the end of 1998 I became the journal's third editor. I held this post for exactly ten years before sharing the role with my Co-editor, Dr Mark Shelbourn for the last four years. During my time at the helm I believe that Structural Survey has continued to thrive as the foremost academic journal for building surveyors. It is one of only a very few such publications that the RICS makes available to its entire membership in digital form through its library and it is a CIB-encouraged journal. Structural Survey was ranked fifth (equal) in terms of number of outputs published by academics submitting to the built environment unit of assessment of the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise. Editing a journal such as this is hard work and I have stayed on much longer than I originally intended. In 1998, a senior colleague encouraged me to take on the editorship by saying that it would be very good for my profile but he also advised me not to do it for more than five years as it would interfere with my own research – perhaps I should have taken more notice of him! I have enjoyed editing the journal immensely but as my workload in other areas increases I have decided that it is the right time to hand on to someone younger who will be able to bring renewed enthusiasm to the role. Mark will stay on as Co-Editor and Emerald are in the process of appointing a new Co-Editor.

A journal such as this could never survive without regular contributors and at least one of the authors of the five papers in this issue has written for Structural Survey previously. John Mansfield is a very regular contributor to this journal and to many others and is the type of author beloved by editors. His papers are so well written that invariably reviewers advise “accept without amendment”. This latest paper reflects on the impact of the previous UK Government's policy on heritage protection. I first met Jim Smith at an RICS COBRA Conference at Nottingham Trent just over ten years ago and our paths have crossed at similar conferences ever since. His paper on private certification of the building control function in Queensland is written with his son and a colleague. Azlan Shah Ali and a colleague have written about the particular problem of achieving national recognition for the building surveying profession in Malaysia. There are several BS university courses in that country but the legislation required to officially recognise the profession has been consistently blocked by rival professions. I know about this problem from the perspective of an external examiner of the BS degree at the University of Malaya. When I visited Kuala Lumpur a couple of years ago I spoke to a group of over 100 students who were most concerned that they would have to travel abroad to find employment as a BS or do something different. Nigel Craig and colleagues’ paper is based on part of Antoinette Charles's PhD research into how to successfully improve the thermal performance of the many no-fines concrete constructed houses in the UK (many of which are located in Scotland where the authors are based). Noora Kokkarinen and Alison Cotgrave's paper is about how students respond to attempts to embed sustainability literacy in the curriculum of built environment programmes of study.

The latter two papers are based on very good doctoral research that I have examined recently. You know you are getting old when you examine PhDs that have been supervised by people whose PhDs you have also examined, as was the case with both of these students! These were two of the four PhDs that I have examined in the last eight months and in my view there is no more demanding task in assuring the quality of the future of academia. One certainly wouldn’t undertake the role of PhD examiner for the money, which is extremely little for the several days of reading that is required for the average thesis. Observant readers will have noticed that my review of the papers in this issue has concentrated more on the authors and less on the subjects they are writing about. There is a reason for such self-indulgence in this final editorial and it is because when I look back on the last 17 years it is the people and not the papers that I remember. I have met some good friends from all around the world as a result of editing this journal and the girls (they have all been women) at the publishers, Emerald, have all been a delight to work with.

Of course I must thank those authors and reviewers who have supported the journal over the last 17 years. Mark Shelbourn has also made a considerable contribution to editing Structural Survey over the last four years. As I sign off with a tear in my eye I wish the journal and its future editorial team the very best as it enters a new era. It has been a blast!

Mike Hoxley