HSA Conference 2018, Five Weeks to Go!

Five weeks to go until #HSA18! This is what we have in store for you

With just five weeks to go until the Housing Studies Association’s annual conference, we wanted to update you on what delegates have in store.

The conference theme of ‘Professionalism, Policy and Practice: Exploring the Relationship between Theory and Practice in Housing Studies’ has brought an unprecedented number of papers, including we are very pleased to say, a significant number from our practitioner community. 

As ever, we have strong cohort of early career housing researchers presenting at the conference this year, who have a chance to meet and get to know each other at a careers workshop taking place the morning before the conference kicks of. At the event Dr Jennifer Harris (Homeless Link), Dr Jed Meers (University of York), and Dr Gareth Young (CaCHE) will be discussing their careers in housing post-PhD. If you’re interested in attending, contact Helen ([email protected]). We’re grateful to the combined support of the Housing Studies Charitable Trust and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) for co-funding 9 bursaries supporting early career and unfunded researchers to attend.

The main conference will begin with plenary session on Housing and Politics, chaired by Professor Kenneth Gibb, chair of CaCHE, our main event partner this year. Keith Jacobs from the University of Tasmania will speak paper on housing, class and the relevance of Marx.  Brian Lund of Manchester Metropolitan will give a paper on the connections between housing policy and electoral outcomes. Marisa Gerstein Pineau from Frameworks (US) will consider the general public and housing and homelessness sectors ‘frame’ social problems, why this is important how we might do it better. There’ll be plenty of time for questions, and a chance to continue the discussion over dinner after our first workshop sessions.

Thursday will see a full day of workshop sessions, with plenary presentations from Harris Beider from Coventry University, who will be talking about the challenges of contemporary urban policy, and John Boughton, of the Municipal Dreams blog and website who will be talking about his forthcoming book on the rise and fall council housing in Britain. The day’s proceedings will be followed by a drinks reception sponsored by Housing Studies journal, where the winner of this year’s Valerie Karn prize for best Early Career Paper will be announced. We’re delighted to announce that Dr Beverley Searle (University of Dundee) and friend of the HSA will be our pre-dinner speaker, wetting our appetites for the conference dinner held this year in the municipal grandeur of Sheffield Town Hall.

We have a practice-focused plenary on the last day of the conference, chaired by Tony Stacey, Chair of South Yorkshire Housing Association, who we’re very happy have come on board to support the event this year. He’ll be speaking to Gavin Smart (Chartered Institute of Housing), Dr Mary Taylor (former academic and Chief Executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations) and Jenny Osbourne (Tenant Participatory Advisory Service) about the housing profession.

We are sure you will agree that this years HSA conference promises to be a great event. Join in on twitter, letting us know when you’ve booked your place, what you’ll be speaking about and what you’re most looking forward to using out hashtag #hsa18. And don’t forget you only have 3 days left to book at discounted early bird rates. We look forward seeing you there!

Joe and Tony (Conference Organisers)