IJGCH Reports Record Impact to ISSMGE Council in Vienna
On June 14, 2026, Co-Editors-in-Chief Dimitrios Zekkos (University of California, Berkeley) and Jean-Louis Briaud (Texas A&M University) presented the International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories (IJGCH) status report to the Council of Member Societies of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), held at the occasion of the 21st International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (21ICSMGE) in Vienna.
Record readership
The report highlights continued growth in the journal's reach. Since its founding, IJGCH — the only diamond open-access journal in the geotechnical engineering field — has published 155 papers. In 2025 alone, those papers were downloaded 138,733 times, up from 84,799 downloads in 2021, an average of 895 downloads per paper. The most-downloaded paper of the year, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa's stabilization, was accessed over 21,000 times.
Leadership transitions
The report also marks a period of change for the journal's editorial leadership:
- Jean-Louis Briaud, who served as Co-Editor-in-Chief since 2017, is stepping down; a successor will be announced.
- Suzanne Lacasse has agreed to serve as Ombudsperson, succeeding Michelle Jamiolkowski, who passed away.
- The role of Special Issues Coordinator, previously led by Shehab Agaiby, has been discontinued as part of a broader restructuring.
- Starting in 2025, ISSMGE Technical Committee liaisons now hold official seats on the Editorial Board, deepening integration between the journal and ISSMGE's technical work.
Platform and recognition
The journal launched a redesigned website and review platform in October 2025, featuring an interactive map for browsing case histories by location and single sign-on across the Journal, GeoWorld, and ISSMGE platforms.
The ISSMGE Outstanding Case History Award, bestowed every four years for a paper published in the journal, was presented at the 21ICSMGE in Vienna. The 2025 award went to:
Lee, S. W., Leung, C. O., Cheung, C., Wijesooriya, T., & Schwob, A. (2025). Large diameter TBM tunnelling beneath new reclamation. ISSMGE International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories, 7(3), 56–77. https://doi.org/10.4417/IJGCH-07-03-04. Read the full announcement.
Special issues
In the past four years, the journal has published special issues on Reinforced Fill Structures (TC218), Scour and Erosion (TC213), and Environmental Geotechnics (TC215), with more planned in collaboration with additional Technical Committees.
The full Council report and presentation slides are available below.
