As we reach the end of 2025, I take this opportunity to revisit what has been going on in CaCHE in the last 12 months and what we might expect next year.
CaCHE has seen much change in the last year. We moved office from Bridgeton’s Olympia building in the east end of Glasgow (where since 2017 we shared space with our friends in the Glasgow Centre for Population Health). We are now back on the University Campus in the west end of the city located in our Divisional home, Urban Studies and Social Policy, in Bute Gardens (see image). The Bridgeton office was a great place to work but was never quite the same in terms of occupation levels post Covid-19.
The other noticeable change which impacted on all of us has been considerable staff change in the last year. On the research and knowledge exchange side, Nicholas Harrington, Michael Marshall, Theo Barry Born and Joe Frey left us for new posts or, in the latter case, retirement. In the core CaCHE team, Edward Strudwick, our business manager, and Glenn Corrigan, our communications and engagement manager, also left for other posts in the University. They have been replaced by Calum Thomson and Kirsty Hebdon. Both are doing an excellent job and have settled readily in. Along with Kalina Raeva, they are the glue that holds the CaCHE enterprise together. We wish everyone who has left us in the last year the very best for the future.
Meanwhile, work never stops. CaCHE has continued its existing programme as well as starting new projects in 2025. The Sheffield team delivered the third consecutive Scottish affordable need study, with a frightening central estimate of a 50% increase in affordable need in the next Parliament. The Urban Retrofit programme has moved into primary research mode. Much of the year has been focused for me on the Edinburgh homelessness study in partnership with Indigo House and the Centre for Homelessness Impact.
We have also produced a fourth paper with Vikki McCall and colleagues on housing support, with further ideas for research in this important area to come next year. This year also saw our Council Tax reform report for Joseph Rowntree Foundation and a series of housing strategy reports for the Nationwide Foundation, as well as papers on housing and coastal erosion and further research on heat pumps. All our outputs from 2025 can be found here on our website.
CaCHE also co-hosted (with the International Journal of Housing Policy) a successful international housing conference in September.
Looking forward, Gareth James and I reprised our housing evidence manifesto for the Scottish elections in May. New projects underway or just starting include: research on Build to Rent for the Nationwide Foundation, a think piece on a new Scottish housing land delivery agency for Shelter Scotland, and work on Denmark’s national building fund. Our role on the EU Horizon Equal House project, led by Mark Stephens, continues. We also have plans to write a collaborative CaCHE-wide book on housing policy.
2026 will be the final year of CaCHE ESRC funding phase 2. For that reason, we have work to do to promote the impact, influence and insights of our work going back to 2017. We will establish a narrative-based impact case study section to our website, and we intend to hold forward-looking showcase events in each of our five knowledge exchange hubs. We are also thinking of running another housing research conference along similar lines to the 2025 event. We will let you know in the usual way as soon as these ideas crystalise.
I finish by stressing that we are actively pursuing new funding routes, including bidding for new larger projects and related research opportunities. While there are no certainties, and this is a difficult time in the HEI sector, we do hope to see CaCHE continue beyond our current funding envelope. Watch this space.
Photo: University of Glasgow College of Social Sciences
