Annual Conference 2025

Housing Studies Association 
Annual Conference 2025

Households, Housing Research, Policy and Practice

Join us for the Housing Studies Association Annual Conference 2025 as we come together to share and discuss cutting-edge housing research and policy/practice issues during uncertain times for housing systems. 

Our theme for this conference is deliberately broad: Households, Housing Research, Policy and Practice, but it still provides a timely opportunity for us to think about the often taken-for-granted relationship between the household, housing policy and housing debate.  The conference will provide a forum for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to explore the complex connections between theory and practice and problem-framing and problem-solving.  We have asked our plenary speakers to think “outside the box” in addressing the topic of the household in housing-related research, theory and practice, and we are sure that they will inspire you during the event and give you food for thought subsequently.    

We warmly welcome contributions from UK-based and international researchers (within and outside of academia, from all disciplinary backgrounds and at all stages of their careers), policymakers and practitioners, campaigners, activists, and communities and contributions that consider both single country and comparative cases.  We would particularly welcome offers of jointly-authored papers which establish a dialogue between practice and academia. The conference will further explore broader housing and place research, theoretical developments and policy developments. 

At HSA, we are proud of our welcoming and friendly atmosphere at the conference, and we strongly encourage the submission of papers related to housing-related research, practice, and education, irrespective of their direct alignment with the conference theme, fostering a diverse and inclusive discourse on housing studies. 

Our conference offers an opportunity to engage in broader discussions including (but not limited to): 

• Households, housing research, policy and practice
• The household as a unit of analysis – questions about data linkage and big data
• Quasi-households and alternative housing consumption bundles
• The approaches to conceptualising the meaning of 'home' and household
• The relationship between our housing and neighbourhoods and our physical and psychological health
• Housing finance and economics
• Intersectional inequalities in access to safe and secure housing
• The management and governance of housing providers
• Urban change and dynamics in housing systems
• Fuel poverty and climate change
• The design and quality of residential buildings
• Harm and housing
• Emergency services and our communities; risk, safety, prevention and response
• Housing, migration, and communities 
• Housing displacement and gentrification  
• Global and cross-sectional responses to housing crises
• Housing activism and politics
• Homelessness, housing precarity, housing and welfare policy, and,
• Other topics relating to housing-related research, education, and practice.   

The HSA 2025 Annual Conference will be returning as a hybrid conference. With face-to-face sessions in Sheffield between 14th and 16th April 2025, and online sessions between 28th and 30th April 2025. We have listened to feedback provided over the past 4 years and we have evolved how we will offer a hybrid experience. This ensures we actively provide a space for discussion and presentation from different groups, but also reflects the voluntary nature of the Housing Studies Association and the organisation of the conference.