Housing and the Cost of Living: An affordability crisis

The Wave is hosting a panel on housing and the cost of living on Wednesday 21 October, from 5:30pm to 7:00pm. It's a free discussion, so you can just turn up and listen in. The whole thing is run by Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield, as part of the Understanding Society 2026 collection and the ESRC Festival of Social Science.

The panel brings together people from academia, policy and civil society to talk through the UK's housing and cost-of-living crises. They're pulling from three different areas of economics research: macroeconomics, urban economics and household finance. It's not just a chat, either — there'll be a small exhibition of housing-related research by social scientists at the University of Sheffield running alongside it, so you can have a look at the actual work being done on this stuff.

On the panel, Dame Kate Barker chairs the discussion; she's a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Leading the conversation are Dr Mallory Yeromonahos, a lecturer in economics, and Professor Alberto Montagnoli, a professor of finance. Between them, they're bringing together voices from the university, the policy world and civil society to look at the crisis from a few different angles at once.

It's at The Wave, part of the University of Sheffield, at 2 Whitham Road, S10 2AH. The panel runs from 5:30pm to 7:00pm on Wednesday 21 October, and it's free to attend.