Celebrating New Funding: Building Lasting Impact with Reall and University of Warwick

We are delighted to share that Reall has secured ESRC Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) funding to advance our work embedding gender equity within affordable housing delivery, both internally and across the wider housing ecosystem. 

The ESRC IAA scheme supports research with real-world impact. This funding allows us to scale the important work initiated through a 2024 Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) grant, and to ensure our gender-focused strategies are fully integrated into our operations and sector partnerships. 

Building upon the Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) 

This new phase of work builds directly on a successful 2024 AKT grant, aid the foundation for the partnership between Warwick and Reall. The AKT project focused on strengthening our approach to gender, helping the organisation move from ad hoc engagement to a more strategic and embedded framework. 

The three-month AKT project generated recommendations for gender-sensitive housing delivery and introduced practices that began shifting Reall’s internal processes and policies. However, its limited scope meant engagement with broader stakeholders, including Reall’s partners and external developers, remained out of reach. The ESRC IAA grant offers the opportunity to bridge this gap, building on the momentum of the AKT to scale insights and foster a culture of gender inclusion across the housing sector. 

Project Mission and Objectives 

At the heart of this new project is a clear mission: to ensure that gender equity principles are not only embedded within Reall’s own work but extended to influence the wider affordable housing sector. 

While the case for gender-inclusive housing is well-established from a rights and development perspective, there is still limited understanding of its commercial viability, particularly in emerging urban markets; developers and other housing practitioners often express concerns about the perceived costs, complexity, or market demand for gender-sensitive approaches. Through this project, we aim to bridge that gap: not only by building internal capacity, but by working directly with market actors to understand their realities, challenges, and motivations. This will ensure that the best practice guidance we co-produce is grounded in real-world constraints and opportunities and supports gender integration in ways that are both impactful and commercially feasible. 

This work will: 

1. Strengthen Internal Capacity: Ensuring the recommendations from the AKT project are embedded into Reall’s operations, including its upcoming initiatives such as Green City Homes International (GCHI), and Kenya-based gender-focused initiative, Green Affordable Housing Finance (GAHF). 

1. Shape Sector-wide Practice: Translating research insights into practical, realistic recommendations for housing developers and stakeholders across Kenya, with the goal of embedding gender-sensitive practices into housing delivery from the ground up. 

By anchoring this work in practical implementation and sustained engagement, the project ensures the longevity of the AKT and supports systemic change in the housing sector. The goal is not just to generate recommendations, but to empower organisations to act on them, helping to ensure organisations embed gender equity in housing delivery as a matter of standard practice. 

This project is about more than integrating a research agenda, it’s about embedding change that lasts. By working in close partnership with Warwick and leveraging support from the ESRC, Reall is proud to be leading the way in advancing gender equity in green, affordable housing. 

We look forward to sharing our progress and lessons learned in the months ahead. 

This work will be carried out jointly by Prof. Juanita Elias at the University of Warwick, and by Dr Hannah Robinson and Etta Madete at Reall over the next 8 months. 

This blog is written by Dr Hannah Robinson.