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Anya MartinHow a research prize gives you the opportunity to get your voice out there
Anya Martin, who has had career success since winning Thinkhouse’s Early Careers Researcher’s Prize, explains why you should enter this year’s competition as the deadline approaches
Monday 30 September marks the deadline for submissions to Thinkhouse’s 2019 Early Career Researcher’s Prize (ECRP).
This is the second year of the competition, which provides a fantastic opportunity for researchers to showcase their work to the housing sector.
I won the inaugural competition last year and I want to encourage other researchers to apply by talking a bit about how the award helped me.
This year presented many new opportunities and the ECRP played a big role in it.
Shortly after the award, Lord Richard Best got in touch with my employer Peabody to ask if we could support his all-party parliamentary group’s inquiry into older renters.
It was a real opportunity to put my skills into practice and contribute to the policy debate. Through the inquiry we were able to highlight the risk of hundreds of thousands of pensioners being trapped in an unaffordable private rented sector, and how there is now a window of opportunity to improve the system before it’s too late.
“Entering the competition not only allows you to share your research and raise your profile in the sector, but it also contributes to a culture of evidence-led policy and peer review”
I was delighted that the report was welcomed at the launch by both the homelessness minister and the shadow housing minister. It was also a lot of fun. I got to visit some of fantastic housing schemes, meet the residents, and make the same joke every time about whether they have any spare rooms going.
A few months ago, I also took up a secondment as senior researcher at the National Housing Federation.
I’ve no doubt the award had a role in my appointment, and my experience of the Millennium Cohort Study was really useful as this role involves a lot of analysis of big public and academic datasets. It has been a great experience working for an organisation that I’ve long respected.
The feedback offered by the judges was genuinely useful and I’ve kept it in mind as I worked on research afterwards. I finished my master’s dissertation this year – which built on my entry – and snuck in as many citations of myself as I could.
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Perhaps my favourite result was people coming up to me at sector events and saying that they recognise me but can’t recall why. By all accounts, I’ll be getting my Hollywood star of fame soon.
I would encourage all early career researchers to get involved and submit a paper. In the past few years, we have seen housing rise up the agenda, and a wider public understanding of the impacts of the housing crisis.
Research plays a critical role in this. With a new government formulating its approach and a tumultuous political environment, we need a strong evidence base to make the case for policies that will make a difference.
Entering the competition not only allows you to share your research and raise your profile in the sector, but it also contributes to a culture of evidence-led policy and peer review.
We need to ensure that valuable learning is captured and disseminated, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and constant reinventions of the wheel.
Many early career researchers themselves will have experienced the sharp end of the housing crisis.
Even sympathetic listeners, who grew up when housing was cheaper and homeownership was the norm, often don’t understand the scale of the problem simply because they haven’t lived through it.
The ECRP is an opportunity to get your voice out there – so go for it!
Anya Martin, senior researcher, National Housing Federation
The call for submissions closes on 30 September 2019. This year’s award is sponsored by Altair and L&Q and offers a prize fund of £500.
Click here for more info about how to enter
The Thinkhouse Early Career Researcher’s Prize 2019
What is it?
Thinkhouse, a website that collates and critiques housing research and provides monthly research reviews for Inside Housing, is now looking for entries to its Early Career Researcher’s Prize.
The prize, which is in its second year and is supported by Inside Housing, aims to give researchers in the early stages of their career “an opportunity to showcase their work to a wide and influential audience”.
It is open to those with up to eight years’ research experience, with or without a PhD, and those working in non-academic as well as academic institutions.
Entries are encouraged from the voluntary sector, thinktanks, housing associations, local authorities and journalists.
Those wanting to enter should submit a piece of research between 4,000 and 8,000 words in length. The panel will consider think pieces, papers reviewing existing evidence and policy analysis or investigative journalism. Journal articles or other papers already published or under review will be accepted.
Thinkhouse’s preference is for research pieces that “cover ways to increase the amount and quality of the UK’s housing stock and the related economic, social and community benefits of doing so” but those with other housing-related research pieces are advised to get in touch.
Papers must be emailed to info@thinkhouse.org.uk by the end of September 2019.
The winner will receive £500 and a year’s Inside Housing subscription. They will also have their award win reported by Inside Housing and their paper published on the Thinkhouse website.
The judges will focus on the following areas:
- Writing style/clarity
- Engagement with literature and theory
- Methods
- Empirical rigour/theoretical depth
- Strength of conclusions
- The extent of how the research is outcome and impact-focused so that it contributes to useful knowledge exchange
- The scalability of the research (ie the scope to make a widespread difference)
Who is on the judging panel?
- Stephen Aldridge, director for analysis and data, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
- Carl Brown, head of engagement, Inside Housing
- Professor Phil Brown, professor of social policy, University of Salford
- Professor Ken Gibb, director, CaCHE
- Richard Hyde, founder and editorial panel chair, Thinkhouse
- Anya Martin, winner of the Early Career Researcher’s Prize 2018
- Steve Moseley, group director of governance, strategy and communications, L&Q
- Jennifer Rolison, marketing executive, Altair
What is Thinkhouse?
Thinkhouse was formally launched in spring 2018, and aims to “provide a single location and summary of the best and most innovative research pieces, policy publications and case studies”.
It specifically looks at reports that propose ways to boost the amount and quality of housing and the economic, social and community issues of not doing this.
The Thinkhouse editorial panel highlights the ‘must-read’ reports, blogs about them and runs the annual Early Career Researcher’s Prize.
The panel includes current and former housing association chief executives, academics, lawyers, economists and consultants. It is chaired by Richard Hyde, chief executive of a business that sells construction hand tools.
Who is on the panel?
Richard Hyde | Chair of Editorial Panel, CEO of HYDE |
Gemma Duggan | Head of Compliance and Performance at Extracare |
Chris Walker | Economist |
Brendan Sarsfield | CEO, Peabody |
Mick Laverty | CEO, Extracare Charitable Trust |
Martin Wheatley | Senior Fellow, Institute for Government, |
Kerri Farnsworth | Founder & MD, Kerri Farnsworth Associates |
Suzanne Benson | Head of Real Estate for the Manchester office of Trowers. |
Burcu Borysik | Policy Manager at Revolving Doors Agency, |
Ken Gibb | Professor in housing economics at the University of Glasgow, Director of CaCHE |
Peter Williams | Departmental Fellow, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge |
Brian Robson | Executive Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Northern Housing Consortium |
Francesca Albanese | Head of Research and Evaluation at Crisis |
Jules Birch | Journalist and blogger |
Susan Emmett | Head of Engagement for Homes England |
Mark Farmer | Founder and CEO Cast Consultancy |
Steve Moseley | Group Director of Governance, Strategy & Communications at L&Q |
Jennifer Rolison | Head of marketing at Aquila Services Group |
Philip Brown | Professor of Housing and Communities at the University of Huddersfield |
Anya Martin | Senior researcher at the National Housing Federation |
Emily Pumford | Policy & strategy advisor, Riverside |
Anthony Breach | Analyst, Centre for Cities |
Shahina Begum | Customer Insight Office, Peabody |
