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Thinkhouse to launch research competition
Website Thinkhouse is launching a competition for researchers in the early stages of their careers.
The site, which collates and critiques housing research, has announced people can enter its Early Career Researcher’s Prize from next month.
It is urging people with up to six years of research experience to submit entries to help fill gaps in housing-related research identified by the Thinkhouse editorial panel (see box below).
Gemma Duggan, member of the Thinkhouse editorial panel and senior consultant at Altair, said: “We are looking for think pieces, research papers, original empirical research, evidence reviews and investigative journalism pieces”
The competition opens for entries on 1 June.
Submissions should be between 4,000 and 8,000 words in length and the deadline will be 28 September.
To enter, email your work to info@thinkhouse.org.uk.
Further details about the criteria will be published on thinkhouse.org.uk over the coming weeks.
The prize is £250 and your work published and reviewed on the Thinkhouse website.
The competition is being sponsored by consultancy Altair.
The research gaps Thinkhouse is asking you to fill
- International reports, evidence or case studies that have demonstrated success at increasing the quantity and quality of housing supply in their host countries/cities.
- As housing policy across the UK diverges, exploration of learning from different approaches to housing across the three devolved nations and London.
- Research into the direct experiences of social housing tenants and those renting from private landlords (who are they? why do they make the decisions/choices they do?).
- How the homeownership and rental tenures (both social, affordable, and private rented sector) can be more effectively linked together to recognise that individuals do not have static housing needs.
- The links between the cost of housing and this costs impact on living standards, an area of study which has become fallow since John Hill’s comprehensive report ten years ago.
- Given the amount of public land, the failure to release significant chunks of it without the public-sector scrapping to get ‘best value’ building on recent pieces from Civitas, on how this has held back housing.
- Estate regeneration beyond just bricks and mortar, research to look at the benefits of regeneration in a wider social, physical, and economic context that is not restricted/can cross local authority boundaries. This may also be pertinent in helping shed light on some of the current battles between residents and councils battling over radical estate demolition/rebuild.
- Exploration of the fragmented structure housing association sector, add if it creates the most effective structure to build and manage homes.
- Exploration of the question ‘has there been a recognised shift by the Government towards again accepting social housing as an important part of the policy, which started after the referendum and change of PM in 2016, was energised further following the Grenfell Tower catastrophe?’
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 |
