UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (Phase 2)

This application is for four years transitional funding, following five years initial funding from ESRC and AHRC (with Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)). The UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) was set up to be a housing evidence centre, drawing on a range of social sciences disciplines. The original housing priority was a recognition of multiple policy and practice needs for rigorous evidence. The ongoing need for CaCHE's strategic evidence and research arises from ongoing and newly arising problems, often termed the 'housing crisis'.

CaCHE will retain its "hub and spoke" network with its administrative core in Glasgow and a physical presence in all 5 sub-national knowledge exchange hubs in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales & the South West, the North & Midlands, and London, East & South East. The Centre's work will now be more focused and organised around four (not 7) themes (economy, environment, inequalities and place). The management team will be responsible for overall strategy, operational delivery, co- ordination, data navigation, research and KE. Meeting monthly, the executive team of three academics (Gibb, Watkins and White) will be supplemented by a senior non-academic lead on knowledge exchange and communications (Williamson), plus a full-time programme manager, KE and communications, and administrative support staff. A wider management team will meet at least every three months and involve theme and cross cutting work strand leads as well (Marsh, Stephens, Orford, Payne, Leishman, Robinson, Preece, O'Brien and Ambrose).There will be further CI input into themes by Blair, Munro, and Serin. CaCHE will remain accountable to a funders group and an international advisory board (as well as reporting annually to the key Research Organisations).

The main consortium members are the Universities of Glasgow and Sheffield, plus the Chartered Institute of Housing. There are also contributions from the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Sheffield Hallam, Ulster and South Australia. The consortium has a lengthy list of institutional and individual collaborators at regional and national level and our activity will be supported 'in kind' and by direct contributions working through the KE Hub structure including Crisis, Centre for Homelessness Impact and HQN and several more. Our consortium also has specific project plans with complementary ESRC investments: e.g. Urban Big Data Centre, CDRC, White Rose Social Sciences DTP

The programme of work proposed for CaCHE2 combines what worked well in CacHE1 as well as lessons learned, alongside a refreshed agenda reflecting housing system developments since 2017. It is also takes account of the implications of transitional funding for what was a large consortium. CaCHE2 is necessarily smaller in breadth and participants but also is more focused in terms of themes and work packages. This places an additional premium on the relevance and significance of those work priorities. CaCHE2 also embraces the strategic commitment research organisations are providing for the team and seeking therefore to develop a sustainable funding model by prioritising new external partnership and leveraged agile bidding for new responsive and proactive research opportunities that cohere with CaCHE's fundamental aims. In all of the work CaCHE2 will seek to continue to maximise the social and economic impact that the work has for research users. It does this by both refocusing on specific project impact plans and established CaCHE networking and communications, but additionally continuing with successful KE programmes such as the Policy Fellows scheme, the PhD summer school and a greater emphasis on policy and practice briefings, blogging, video and podcasts.