Award ceremony for the "Housing Policy" study prize
The jury, consisting of Dr. Franz-Georg Rips (Honorary President of the German Tenants' Association), Anna Wolff (Housing and Rental Policy Officer, Deutscher Mieterbund e.V.), Dr. Armin Hentschel (Director of the Institute for Social Urban Development - IFSS), Prof. Dr. Klaus Selle (NetzwerkStadt. Forschung, Beratung, Kommunikation GmbH) and Dr. Anja Szypulski (Faculty of Urban Planning - IFSS), awarded the prize to outstanding master's and diploma theses and dissertations in this field. Armin Hentschel (Director, Institute for Social Urban Development - IFSS), Prof. Dr. Klaus Selle (NetzwerkStadt. Forschung, Beratung, Kommunikation GmbH) and Dr. Anja Szypulski (Department of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University) emphasized the outstanding quality of the work submitted and its special features. Due to numerous good, but also fundamentally different works, the jury awarded two first places (without further ranking) and one honorable mention in each of the dissertation and master's thesis categories.
The two first places in the dissertation category went to Judith Keller from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg with the title "The Unhomely Nation? An Exploration of Trust and Distrust in Times of the US Housing Crisis" and Fabian Schmid from the Institute of Sociology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg on "Genesis, Discourses and Use of the Königstein Key."
In the Master's thesis category, two first places went to Erik Schmidt, University of Leipzig, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH - UFZ on "Berlin housing policy and the referendum on the socialization of private housing companies. A historical-materialist policy analysis" and Sofia Tsitselli and Santiago Martinez Murillo from TU Berlin with the title "Obsolete Urbanities: An urban redevelopment proposal with alternative governance."
The special prize with a commendable mention went to Dr. Philipp Kadelke from TU Dortmund University, Department of Social Sciences with a focus on social inequalities for "Mietwohnung oder Eigenheim? A sociology of home ownership status."
The endowed Housing Policy Study Prize has been awarded every two years since 2015 in cooperation between the German Tenants' Association (DMB) and the Department of Spatial Planning at TU Dortmund University, represented by IRPUD and now by the Department of Regional Development and Risk Management (RER), with the aim of promoting young academics. The "Housing Policy" study prize was awarded to graduates and doctoral students from disciplines related to housing policy, in particular spatial and urban planning, geography, social sciences, political sciences, economics, housing economics and real estate economics. The prize was awarded on the basis of nominations. All university lecturers and academic staff at universities were eligible to nominate candidates.