Critical Approaches to Scottish Housing

(Convenor Sarah Glynn – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

The urgency of Scotland’s housing crisis is well recognised. Scotland has its own housing traditions and a devolved housing policy, but many of the wider forces and government policies affecting Scottish housing are similar to those south of the border or even further a field. The purpose of this research network is to look, critically, at the impacts of these policies, and at possible alternatives, in a Scottish context. We will do this by bringing together academics, from within and outwith Scotland, and community organisations that have direct experience of the impacts of housing policies on the ground.

Our aim is to extend discussion and debate across different disciplines and to emphasise a broad and critical perspective. Much current housing research is policy driven, responding to specific criteria set by government. We believe that it is also important to facilitate routes whereby research that is independent and possibly critical of policy can be brought together and feed into future policy decisions: and that there is also an important part to be played in this by non-academics

The aims and objectives can be summarised as:

• Providing a forum for ongoing critical analysis of key issues in Scottish housing that can feed into policy debates
• Networking on housing issues across institutions, disciplines and both within and outwith academia
• Bringing end users into the debate
• Creating an environment that encourages further research on related questions

Links 

Firm Foundations – A response to the Scottish Government’s Housing Green Paper

An Alternative Housing Strategy for Scotland – A day’s symposium held at the University of Edinburgh 1^st October 2007