The RED Data Research and Academia group seeks to promote rigorous, academic research on real-estate data to stakeholders and practitioners in the sector.

Things are changing fast.

Data is beginning to disrupt the real-estate sector raising questions as to how it can respond to new demands and challenges.

Academic research is peer reviewed, empirically robust and provides a balanced view on these changes.

It can benefit practitioners in navigating these changing times by providing new insight, while stimulating debate and conversation. 

 

There are a range of benefits to sharing your research and ideas with RED. As academics, we like our research to reach a broad audience. Mobilising RED’s network will help you to do just that.

Beyond academia it can sometimes be challenging to ensure that our work reaches practitioners, in terms of identifying the audience, understanding the best format to frame your work and in building a network. Our structured output/blog series and existing network makes this easier.

Sometimes, we may have exciting findings which are empirically interesting, but are not of theoretical interest to journals. Findings and recommendations when presented to the right audience are highly valuable.

Research funding bodies, KEF, and REF increasingly highlight the need for academics to engage with broader stakeholders. RED helps researchers demonstrate industry engagement through the dissemination of their research, but to also locate future partners to collaborate with, securing access to named research beneficiaries, potential for direct consultancy, in addition to spotting emerging new technologies and potential areas of study in real estate data.

In joining the RED community, we encourage academics to explore ongoing work on the rest of the website concerning changes in data ethics and data standards, which could be of interest to their own work.

Research briefings provide practitioners with access to the latest academic research on real estate data covering a broad range of topics. The research will be empirically-based, drawing upon evidence gathered from expert interviews or quantitative data.

The findings, ideas and recommendations will be robust, but will also provide a challenging outsider perspective, free from sponsorship or in-house constraints. Research reports will provide unique and compelling insight, in a clear digestible format.

Practitioners will be able to identify and connect with academic researchers and their networks to find out more about associated work in the area and to follow-up with questions to gain further insight and ideas.

Practitioners are encouraged to explore the potential for future collaborations with researchers, through consultancy funding, knowledge exchange programmes or as research project beneficiaries, advising on the potential direction of future funded research projects.

RED defines ‘real estate’ and ‘data’ in broad terms and are interested in all work that concerns both.

You should initially get in touch with Tom Wainwright with a brief outline of your idea, so we can check that your proposed contribution meets the interests of RED.

You can then submit your report following one of the 4 research report formats listed below. These formats are important to ensure that the briefs are a punchy, quick read and are easy to digest.

Each format has a slightly different word limit and some sub-headings for structure, which need to be addressed.

Many readers will not be familiar with ongoing academic debates, theoretical literature or terminology, so contributions need to be written in a clear, non-technical prose for practitioners.

After emailing Tom with your work, a steering group member will both provide a light review of the report, with suggestions on enhancing clarity and accessibility, before being formatted to match the house format and style.

While RED is seeking academics for research contributions, PhD students are able to submit contributions with their supervisor’s support. PGT and placement students are encouraged to submit case studies.

There are 4 main types of output:

Research briefings (2000 words): short, punchy research briefings that cover project findings or manuscript summaries that will be of interest to practitioners

Thought/opinion/’findings’ leadership (1000-2000 words): you may have be recommendations based on findings from a project, or external independent views and observations of the sector that you can share

Problem framing (1000-2000): this may be a more hypothetical/theoretical piece based on research gaps in the field that require further research, industry collaboration, or issues that the sector has not yet examined

Case studies (1000-2000): these are shorter summary reviews developed by placement and PGT students, based on their project work, that focus on a particular organisation and how they are responding to issues concerning data in real estate

Other: we are of course open to considering a different format if the 4 above don’t work, but we won’t be able to publish academic manuscripts, published papers or conference proceedings.

RED looks to publish research reports on a quarterly basis, but there are no strict deadlines for submitting ideas

Here on the RED website, circulated by email to registered members of RED and its supporting organisations, and distributed through social media channels

You do.

The website simply showcases research briefings to a broad audience. We would suggest using a Creative Commons license to copyright your work, ensure attribution and to determine how your work is used, if at all, elsewhere. See existing briefing reports as examples, or find out more here: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/

No, certainly not. No one pays a thing, for a start!

The research briefings are free to readers and no charges are made to contributors. Our only concern is getting research findings and new ideas to practitioners and to try and facilitate new collaborative relationships.

In the first instance we would recommend reading the contributions of academics and practitioners across the website to identify areas of mutual interest. Further insight on this can be gleaned from RED members through LinkedIn. You may want to drop an email and ask questions about their work and interests.

The steering committee can also provide suggestions to connect with other members.

Areas of collaboration can include:

• Further informal advice and dialogue based on research projects

• Knowledge exchange projects, funded by the UK government

• Private consultancy projects

• PhD studentships with partnered funding or provision of data/projects

• Finding project advisors and pathway to impact beneficiaries/ key stakeholders to inform funded research projects

Do let us know if you would like to work more closely with the steering group. From time to time, steering group committee vacancies emerge. We are also planning on a series of online and in-person workshops and roundtable events, so do let us know if you would be interested in participating. You may of course be happy just promoting RED and research outputs to your (social) networks.