IRES: Exploring Urban Housing Solutions from a Systems Perspective

About This Grant

The Urban Housing Systems (UHS) IRES program is designed to prepare U.S. undergraduate students in urban studies and civil engineering to address real-world urban development challenges, with a particular emphasis on housing. Participating students conduct research at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, developing skills in qualitative data collection, multi-disciplinary collaboration, problem-solving, and systems thinking and modeling to analyze complex socio-technical systems. Students work closely with local faculty mentors, engage in cultural exchange, and contribute to innovative research focused on how housing policies and practices can better meet community needs through a systems-based approach. By fostering connections with housing experts and planners in both Chile and the U.S., the program supports shared learning and cross-cultural dialogue, generating insights that can help housing authorities in both countries, and globally, develop more effective and systemic solutions to urban housing challenges. The global shortage of affordable urban housing is a complex, systemic issue driven by factors such as limited land availability, inadequate infrastructure, restrictive zoning, gentrification, and financing barriers. Despite growing awareness of these challenges, a significant gap remains in research and practice that models the interconnected social, environmental, economic, and technical factors influencing urban housing outcomes. To address this gap, the UHS IRES program provides civil engineering and urban studies students with essential skills in qualitative research design, systems thinking, cross-cultural collaboration, and stakeholder engagement through participation in mixed-methods research in Santiago, Chile. As part of the program, students working in multidisciplinary teams analyze case studies reflecting three distinct urban housing approaches, contributing to a broader understanding of effective housing policies and practices worldwide. Through a phased research design - impact assessment, systems modeling, and leverage point identification - U.S. students collaborate with faculty at Universidad Diego Portales to develop socio-technical systems models based on these case studies. The program's research approach combines qualitative data with network analysis, participatory systems modeling, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to rigorously identify leverage points for improving urban housing outcomes. By combining engineering, social science, and architectural perspectives, the research provides valuable insights to shape impactful policy recommendations. Collaborations with urban housing planners in Chile and the U.S. promote shared learning and meaningful dialogue. A multi-phase external evaluation - comprising feedback, post-program surveys, and a follow-up Zoom focus group assesses students' growth in research skills, collaboration, urban housing expertise, and the UHS IRES program's long-term impact on their educational and career trajectories. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.