The SOLVE-H project addresses pressing socio demographic and governance challenges in European housing by focusing on collaborative housing (CoH) as an alternative model capable of delivering social, environmental, and community value. Across Europe, housing systems face increasing pressures related to affordability, ageing populations, social isolation, and limited citizen participation in decision making. Despite the growing relevance of collaborative and cooperative housing models, their social value remains under measured, fragmented, and largely anecdotal.
The project is situated within the broader EU policy priorities of social inclusion, citizen participation, sustainable housing, and evidence based policymaking, and contributes directly to agendas such as the New European Bauhaus, social sustainability, and participatory governance. Within this context, SOLVE-H aims to move from knowledge based narratives to evidence based metrics, enabling policymakers, municipalities, housing cooperatives, and researchers to systematically assess the social value generated through participation in CoH.
The overarching objective of SOLVE-H is to understand, measure, and operationalise the social value of participation in collaborative housing. This is achieved through three progressive phases:
1. identifying key social value dimensions and indicators;
2. developing a robust, evidence based Social Value Mapping Index; and
3. validating and localising this tool for practical application in European contexts.
The project integrates social sciences and humanities throughout its design, combining housing studies, urban sociology, participatory governance, and policy analysis with quantitative methods (surveys, composite indices) and qualitative approaches (workshops, stakeholder engagement). Expected impacts include improved housing policy design, enhanced capacity for municipalities and cooperatives to evaluate social outcomes, and stronger alignment between citizen led housing initiatives and public policy objectives.
