Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development: Scopus, Metrics, Scope and Submission Guide

Key takeaways for prospective authors

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing; ISSN 2044-1266 and eISSN 2044-1274.
• Core focus: sustainable cultural heritage management, especially the reciprocal relationship between heritage and sustainable development.
• Scopus: the supplied source record is Scopus Source ID 21100299413; Emerald also publishes the journal’s CiteScore.
• Current publisher-displayed metrics: CiteScore 2025: 5.3; Journal Impact Factor 2025: 1.2; five-year Impact Factor 2025: 1.4.
• Manuscript length: normally 4,000–8,000 words, including the structured abstract, references, tables/figures text and appendices.
• Peer review: double-anonymous, with at least two independent referees for papers that pass initial screening.
• Open access: gold and green routes are available; the gold APC should be confirmed from Emerald’s live pricing information.
• Fit matters: a heritage paper is stronger for this journal when sustainability is central to the research question, analysis or implications rather than added only in the conclusion.

Journal information at a glance

What this guide covers

• The journal’s academic role, aims and scope.
• Scopus visibility and current publisher-displayed citation metrics.
• Subjects and manuscript types that may align with the journal.
• Formatting, abstract, keyword and reference requirements.
• Peer review, operational timelines and acceptance-rate context.
• Open-access routes, APC verification and publication ethics.
• A practical journal-fit checklist before submission.
• Ethical ways Contentxprtz can support publication readiness without promising acceptance.

Methodology and source approach

This page was prepared from the supplied journal record and the official Emerald journal and author-guideline information available at the time of review. The supplied record identifies the journal title, publisher, ISSN and Scopus Source ID; Emerald was used to verify the journal’s aims and scope, eISSN, manuscript requirements, article classifications, peer-review model, open-access policy, ethics guidance, citation metrics and operational publication statistics.

Metrics, database coverage, editorial teams, fees and policies can change. Researchers should therefore reconfirm time-sensitive details directly with Emerald, Scopus and any institutional evaluation system immediately before submission or before relying on a metric for promotion, PhD or funding requirements.

What is the Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development?

JCHMSD is a specialist interdisciplinary outlet for research on the management of cultural heritage in the context of sustainable development. Its distinctiveness lies in treating heritage not simply as an object to conserve, but as a resource, responsibility and social process that interacts with environmental quality, communities, economies, governance and long-term development.

The journal is relevant to researchers in heritage studies, architecture and the built environment, conservation, tourism, planning, sustainability, archaeology, policy, management and related social-science or humanities fields when the research question clearly engages with heritage-management practice or theory. Recent Emerald issues illustrate this breadth through work on bioclimatic design in historic settlements, negative heritage, post-colonial migration and place, manuscript preservation, urban heritage regulation, World Heritage values, vernacular settlements, heritage tourism, digital technologies, climate change and professional heritage education.

This breadth does not mean that any paper about culture, architecture or sustainability automatically fits. The strongest alignment is usually visible when cultural heritage and sustainable development are both structurally important to the research problem, theoretical framing, method, findings or implications.

Aims and scope: what the journal is trying to publish

Emerald states that the journal aims to stimulate research devoted to the sustainable development of cultural heritage and to the positive contribution that cultural heritage management can make to a sustainable environment. It also seeks to build knowledge and skills across the international heritage and sustainable-development community by disseminating innovative research and practice.

The journal welcomes theoretical and practical papers using quantitative and qualitative approaches. Emerald places particular emphasis on immovable cultural heritage—from monuments to cultural landscapes—and its role in sustainable development, while also considering other dimensions such as rural heritage and indigenous cultural heritage management.

Topics explicitly reflected in the official scope

• Cultural heritage assessment, management, marketing and public communication.
• Tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
• Preservation, conservation, restoration, rehabilitation, reconstruction and demolition.
• Best practices and threats arising from unsustainable development, including urban growth, large-scale agriculture and mining.
• Heritage legislation and Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment.
• Climate-change effects on cultural heritage.
• Ecological, social and economic sustainability.
• The role of research and scholarship in cultural heritage management.
• Teaching and curriculum development for heritage-related disciplines.

For researchers evaluating fit, a useful interpretation is that the journal favors work that can explain not only what is happening to heritage, but also how it should be understood, managed, governed, conserved or developed sustainably. A purely descriptive case study may therefore need a stronger conceptual, comparative, methodological or practice contribution to be persuasive.

Who should consider submitting?

The journal may suit academics and professionals studying historic buildings, monuments, cultural landscapes, World Heritage, vernacular settlements, museums, archaeological sites, indigenous or rural heritage, tourism and heritage economies, conservation policy, community participation, heritage education, climate adaptation, digital heritage or sustainability assessment.

PhD scholars and early-career researchers may consider the journal when their work has a mature research design and a contribution that extends beyond a local description. A geographically focused case study can still be relevant if it yields transferable knowledge—for example, a new framework, comparative insight, policy implication, conservation method, stakeholder model or sustainability lesson that matters to the wider field.

Professionals may also have a route through practitioner-oriented or case-based formats, but the paper should still demonstrate a clear contribution and follow the journal’s author requirements.

Indexing, visibility and metrics: how to interpret them

The supplied journal record identifies Scopus Source ID 21100299413, and Emerald displays the journal’s Scopus CiteScore. This supports its use as a Scopus-indexed source for researchers checking scholarly visibility. Emerald additionally lists the journal in services including the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), ABI/INFORM, EBSCO, the Australian Business Deans Council Journal Quality List, the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals and other discovery systems.

Emerald currently shows CiteScore 2025: 5.3, 2025 Journal Impact Factor: 1.2, and 2025 five-year Impact Factor: 1.4. These figures are useful contextual indicators, but they are not quality guarantees for individual articles and should not be used without their reporting year.

This guide intentionally does not publish a current quartile, SJR or SNIP value where a reliable current official value was not available in the verified sources. Quartiles can vary by year and subject category, so authors whose university requires a specific Q1–Q4 status should check the latest applicable database directly.

Article types and manuscript categories

During submission, Emerald lists classifications including Research Paper, Practitioner Paper, Book/Tool Review, Conference/Seminar Review, Funding/Project/Network Review, and News and Reviews. It also describes categories such as research paper, viewpoint, technical paper, conceptual paper, case study, literature review and general review.

Choose the classification that best reflects the manuscript’s actual contribution. A literature review should genuinely synthesize and critique a body of literature; a conceptual paper should develop or refine ideas or propositions; a technical paper should evaluate a process, product or service; and a case study should provide insight that extends beyond a narrative description of one organization or location.

Manuscript requirements authors should prepare for

Emerald asks for article files in Microsoft Word format; a PDF may accompany the Word file, but PDF alone is not acceptable. LaTeX is allowed when accompanied by a PDF. The journal states a normal article length of 4,000–8,000 words, including the structured abstract, references, all text in tables and figures, and appendices. Authors should allow 250 words for each figure or table when calculating length.

Structured abstract

Every submission must include a structured abstract with the mandatory headings Purpose, Design/methodology/approach, Findings and Originality. Where appropriate, authors may add Research limitations/implications, Practical implications and Social implications. Emerald states that the abstract should not exceed 250 words in total, including keywords and article classification.

Keywords and author information

Authors may provide up to 12 short, relevant keywords. All contributing authors must be entered in ScholarOne in the intended publication order, and each contributing author needs an account. Emerald also requests accurate email and affiliation information and expects authorship to reflect substantial contribution.

References

References must use a recognised Harvard style. Emerald accepts its own Harvard style or another recognised Harvard variant and emphasizes citation completeness, accuracy and consistency. Where a DOI exists, it should be included.

Submission process and double-anonymous peer review

Submissions must be made by the corresponding author through the journal’s ScholarOne system accessed from the official Emerald page. Emerald explicitly states that submission should not be made by email or through a third-party agent or proxy.

Before peer review, the editorial office screens the manuscript for fit with the journal’s policies, aims and scope and may decline or return submissions that do not meet requirements or whose language/manuscript quality is too low. Papers considered suitable are sent to at least two independent referees for double-anonymous peer review. The editor may then accept, request minor or major revisions, or decline the manuscript.

For anonymization, Emerald asks authors to remove names and identifying details from the review manuscript, upload acknowledgements and biographies separately, and avoid wording that reveals authorship through self-citation.

Review time and acceptance rate: useful context, not a promise

Emerald currently reports a 131-day time to first decision based on submissions received between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025. It reports 54 days from acceptance to publication for the previous 12 months, last updated April 2025. The publisher also reports an acceptance rate of 32.9% for submissions between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.

These values describe historical journal operations. They do not predict how long a new paper will take or whether it will be accepted. Review availability, revisions, topic, methods, editorial workload and the quality of the submission can all affect the path of an individual manuscript.

Open access, copyright and APCs

Emerald offers two open-access routes across its journals. Under gold open access, authors may choose to make the version of record openly available after acceptance. Emerald states that gold OA uses a CC BY 4.0 licence and requires payment of an article processing charge. Because the journal-specific charge can change, authors should confirm the live amount through Emerald’s current APC price list or the editorial system rather than relying on an old figure.

The green open-access route allows authors to make the accepted manuscript available through self-archiving without payment and, under Emerald’s current policy, without an embargo. Authors with funder or institutional mandates should verify which version, repository and licence conditions apply to their specific situation.

Research integrity and publication ethics

Emerald states that it follows COPE guidance and requires manuscripts to be original, not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, and compliant with copyright and permission rules. Conflicts of interest should be declared. Research involving human participants may require ethics approval, informed consent and a suitable ethics statement containing the relevant committee, approval information and governing guidelines.

Emerald may use Crossref Similarity Check to assess originality. Its current guidance also states that large language models cannot be credited as authors; authors remain accountable for the work and must appropriately disclose content created or modified with AI tools where required by the policy. Standard spelling and grammar tools are treated differently from generative AI under the current guidance.

For publication readiness, originality should mean more than a low similarity percentage. Authors should be able to defend the provenance of their data, the accuracy of every citation, the originality of the analysis, permissions for reused material and the integrity of authorship and acknowledgements.

How to decide whether your manuscript fits JCHMSD

Publication-readiness checklist before submission

1. Re-read the current Emerald aims and scope and compare your manuscript with several recent JCHMSD articles.
2. Make the heritage–sustainability connection explicit in the title, abstract, literature review, analysis and implications where genuinely supported.
3. Check that the paper type selected in ScholarOne matches the manuscript’s real contribution.
4. Bring the manuscript within the 4,000–8,000-word range and account for tables and figures.
5. Use the required structured abstract headings and keep the abstract within the current limit.
6. Limit keywords to focused terms that reflect the research problem, heritage context, sustainability dimension and method.
7. Check Harvard-style references for missing authors, years, journal details, pages and DOIs.
8. Remove identifying information from the review manuscript and separate author biographies/acknowledgements as instructed.
9. Confirm permissions, ethics approval, informed consent, funding and conflict-of-interest statements where relevant.
10. Verify the latest Scopus coverage, metrics, APC and author guidelines on the official sites immediately before submission.

Common reasons a manuscript may be unsuitable

A paper may face desk rejection if it is outside the journal’s aims and scope, does not follow the submission policies, or is not written clearly enough for the editorial team to assess. More specifically, risk increases when sustainability is peripheral, the heritage dimension is weak, the paper is mostly descriptive, the literature review does not engage with relevant international scholarship, the methods do not support the conclusions, or the manuscript ignores word-count, abstract, anonymization or reference requirements.

Another frequent fit problem is treating a metric as the main reason to choose a journal. Scopus status or an Impact Factor may matter institutionally, but editors evaluate whether the manuscript contributes to the journal’s scholarly conversation. Journal selection should therefore combine formal eligibility requirements with intellectual fit.

How Contentxprtz can support ethical publication readiness

Contentxprtz can help authors prepare a manuscript more effectively for journal submission through academic editing, language polishing, journal formatting, reference and citation checks, structured-abstract refinement, manuscript assessment, journal-fit review, cover-letter editing and reviewer-response editing. For a JCHMSD submission, support can focus on whether the manuscript communicates the heritage-management problem clearly, makes the sustainability contribution visible, follows Emerald’s format and anonymization requirements, and presents evidence and references consistently.

Such support does not guarantee journal acceptance, peer-review success or publication. Editors and reviewers make independent decisions based on scope, originality, rigor, significance and many other factors. The author remains responsible for the research, data, analysis, ethical compliance, citations, declarations and final submission.

Conclusion: choose the journal for fit, not metrics alone

The Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development is a credible multidisciplinary venue for research that places cultural heritage management in direct conversation with sustainable development. Its Scopus presence, current publisher-displayed CiteScore and Clarivate Impact Factor provide visibility indicators, while its scope gives researchers room to address conservation, climate, tourism, communities, policy, built heritage, landscapes and related sustainability questions.

For prospective authors, the strongest submission strategy is to verify the latest journal data, study recent papers, make the heritage–sustainability contribution unmistakable, follow the detailed Emerald author requirements and submit only when the methods, evidence, ethics and writing are publication-ready. Professional editing can support that process, but no editing service can guarantee acceptance or publication.

At Contentxprtz, we don’t just edit; we help ideas reach their fullest potential.