agathon.it

What It Is

AGATHÓN is an open-access international scientific journal with an Italian background, focusing on Architecture, Art, and Design, while also covering interdisciplinary areas such as urban planning, engineering, building technology, restoration, product design, and visual design. The journal is indexed in databases including Scopus, SCImago, DOAJ, Google Scholar, and EBSCO, which is beneficial for academic dissemination and citation visibility.

Core Features

Its main value is not online courses, but academic publishing and knowledge dissemination. The website provides information about the journal, current issues, popular articles, submission policies, the peer-review process, open-access policies, ethical guidelines, and the editorial team. Articles are published in English and Italian, with two issues released each year in June and December. The journal uses double-blind peer review, typically following a structured process from abstract screening and full-text review to revision and final acceptance. Sections include Focus, Architecture, Art, and Design, with article types such as Essay, Research, Review, and Dialogue.

Pricing

For readers, AGATHÓN follows an open-access model, allowing published articles to be read online for free without requiring a library subscription or per-article payment. For authors, an APC is required after a paper has passed peer review and been accepted. According to the official website, from July 2026 onward, the APC will be €500, with an additional €50 charged for each extra author on multi-author papers. Authors from countries classified by the World Bank as low-income or lower-middle-income economies may be eligible for up to two free publication slots per issue.

Pros and Cons

The advantages are its open-access model, clear CC-BY 4.0 licensing, and strong indexing coverage, making it suitable for architecture and design research that needs international exposure. Its ethics policy, digital archiving, and peer-review documentation are also relatively complete, which enhances its credibility. The drawbacks are that its semiannual publication schedule is relatively slow and space is limited; the APC may put some pressure on early-career scholars or teams with limited funding; and based on the current content, the research context leans more toward Europe and the Mediterranean region, with room to improve coverage of Global South case studies.

Who It’s For

It is suitable for university faculty, PhD students, and research institute staff in fields such as architecture, urban planning, building technology, art history, industrial design, visual communication, and sustainable design who want to submit papers or search for literature. It is an especially good fit if the research topic relates to sustainable development goals, the built environment, materials, energy, or social equity.

Access from China

Judging from the nature of the site and its domain, it appears to be a standard academic journal website with no obvious access restrictions, so it should be directly accessible. However, actual download speeds may be affected by international network routes. Researchers in China should note that submissions must be in English or Italian, and they should confirm whether their institution recognizes the journal and its indexing status for evaluation purposes.