Once again, the editors of the Smart Infrastructure and Construction (SMIC) journal present the journal's objectives and scope, focusing on physical infrastructure assets and construction processes that integrate digital technologies (Correia, 2025a, 2025b), which address topics such as, but not limited to:
advanced materials;
structural health monitoring relevant to civil infrastructures;
intelligent and integrated digital delivery systems in infrastructure and construction;
three-dimensional-printed materials and additive manufacturing techniques;
computer-aided structural integrity; and
digital twins.
Therefore, the journal aims to promote the theoretical and practical principles, adaptive technologies, and advanced solutions that facilitate the construction and management of smarter and more environmentally sustainable infrastructures; that is, the use of building information modelling (BIM), information technologies, digital twins, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, among other current and advanced technologies applied to engineering design, materials production, construction, and infrastructure management that promote more sustainable structures and infrastructures (Correia, 2025a, 2025b).
The co-editors-in-chief invite leading researchers, university professors, designers, and consultants to submit proposals for themed issues that address key challenges and trends related to the scope of the SMIC journal. One recent example of this is the themed issue ‘ICSI25 – Advanced Structural Materials: Manufacturing and Performance’ proposed by guest editors Dr. Behzad Farahani (University of Ghent, Belgium), Dr. Paulo Tavares, and Dr. Pedro Moreira (INEGI, University of Porto, Portugal). This themed issue addresses the following topics:
additive and hybrid manufacturing of structural materials;
process–structure–property relationships and performance optimisation;
damage detection and non-destructive evaluation of advanced materials;
numerical modelling and data-driven approaches to structural performance; and
durability, creep, and long-term behaviour of metallic, composite, and concrete systems.
The journal editors invite authors to submit their work to the featured themed issue ‘ICSI25 – Advanced Structural Materials: Manufacturing and Performance’, as well as to regular issues.
Please note that scientific and technical papers submitted to the journal by academics and professionals will be reviewed within 3–4 weeks of receipt, providing them with constructive feedback from the editorial board.
The SMIC best paper, as part of the ICE Awards 2026, that is, the smart infrastructure prize, was given to the scientific work entitled ‘An improved model for building energy consumption prediction based on time-series analysis’, presented by Prof. Shirui Xiao, from Nanjing Vocational University of Industry Technology, Nanjing, China (Xiao, 2025).
The first work was presented by Kalyviotis (2026) and focuses on reviewing the quantities of materials in foundation structures within the context of structural foundation design. The study shows that the quantities of concrete and steel decrease at a decreasing rate with increasing groundwater level, but increase linearly with the length of the foundation. The quantities of concrete and steel are influenced by the groundwater level, the length, height, and width of the foundation. However, the author also concludes that the materials increase at an accelerated rate with the foundation's height and at variable rates with its width, highlighting the complexity of the relationship between the foundation variables and the quantity of materials.
The second study proposed by Hussein et al. (2026) presents a qualitative study based on 16 semi-structured interviews with municipal and regional engineers and managers, and uses inductive thematic analysis (ATLAS.ti) to examine the adoption of BIM, digital twins, geographic information systems (GIS), and predictive maintenance based on the Internet of Things (IoT). The authors conclude that the study contributes to a grounded, practice-oriented empirical framework and to practical recommendations relevant to resource-limited agencies.
The latest work was proposed by Gbran (2026), who presented and validated an end-to-end AI–IoT–GIS framework that operationalises flood resilience as a perception-learning-decision flow. The authors implemented and tested the proposed framework under extreme conditions in Dubai, using IoT data streams from multiple sources (precipitation, surface runoff, and water level) collected between 2019 and 2024. For the authors, the study provides a reproducible, engineering-grade model for deploying an AI-enabled flood early warning system in arid urban contexts, aligned with UN SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).
The co-editors-in-chief and associate editors of the SMIC journal would like to express their sincere gratitude to the authors, reviewers, and other contributors who contributed to this themed issue. In addition, the editorial staff extends a special thank you to the ICE Publishing and Emerald staff for their dedicated effort in preparing this issue.
