The Irish Independent TU Dublin Ph.D. Doctorate is a four year full-time research programme, validated at Dublin Institute of Technology.

The first successful candidate was Lorna Colley. Her Ph.D. (entitled ‘Good Practice for Conflict of Interest Management in the Commercial Real Estate Process: The Irish Experience’) is near completion, and due for publication in February 2022.

The significant findings and recommendations emerging from this doctoral research will enlighten and inform the frameworks for best practice, policy, governance, plus the monitoring of valuations. This, in turn, will optimise practice regarding how to handle conflict of interest.

The second Doctorate in Property Research, which commenced January 2020, sees Mr. Paul Umfreville as the appointed doctoral candidate who will conduct the research, under the supervision of Dr. Lorcan Sirr. The research will look at the creation of a functioning housing system.

Despite numerous advisory papers – from the Kenny Report of 1973, to the more recent NESC series of reports – the Irish housing system remains less effective than other policy areas. It only seems to deliver occasionally what other systems deliver as a matter of course and has many wider impacts. Numerous questions then present themselves, including:

• What should a functioning housing system do, including its outcomes and impact?
• What theories and evidence underpin policies that cause the system to operate as it does?
• With reference to other policy areas and jurisdictions, what are appropriate methods of policy development, evaluation, and monitoring?

These questions, and more, form the basis of the second Irish Independent TU Dublin Ph.D. scholarship in Housing.