Migration Advisory Committee housing project: statement of requirements
Published 27 February 2025
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mac-housing-project/migration-advisory-committee-housing-project-statement-of-requirements
Purpose
The MAC seeks to procure researchers/research teams to fill crucial evidence gaps in the MAC’s understanding of the impact of migration on housing in the UK. There are two funding pots for projects. The first is for a literature review, with a ceiling of £15,000, with which we intend to award one project. The second is for a more open project(s) exploring the impact of migration on house prices in the UK, with a ceiling of £60,000, with which we intend to award up to 2 projects. Bidders may bid for projects in one or both pots.
If the combined value of projects awarded across the two funding pots comes in below the total £75,000 funding available, then MAC reserves the right to consider making a further award if the residual pot is sufficient to do so.
Background
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is an independent, non-statutory, non-time limited, non-departmental public body that advises the government on migration issues. Our sponsoring department is the Home Office. The committee is supported by a permanent civil service secretariat of around 30 people. The secretariat is made up of staff from various analytical and non-analytical professions.
Overview of requirement
The MAC uses a mix of economic analysis, stakeholder engagement, a call for evidence, and commissioned research to answer the questions set out by the Home Secretary in commissions. We also self-commission work on topics of particular policy interest (which is where this research fits). In this instance, the MAC wants to explore gaps in the current understanding of the impact of migration on housing in the UK. We are running a call for papers, where we are looking to utilise the expertise of academics and experts in the field of housing research, who will design and deliver projects that we will fund.
How the project is delivered is to be determined by the successful bidders. The bids themselves should outline how the bidder aims to deliver the project. We have an obligation to be open, fair, and transparent with the funding but have no preferred analytical method to be adopted for the research proposed and will evaluate each bid according to its merits based on the evaluation criteria stated within the Instruction to bidders.
We will not be conducting interviews as part of the assessment process, therefore any information the bidder wishes to be evaluated on should be included in the application in response to our written questions, and the evaluation criteria to which each question is allocated. To protect the public purse, the MAC will be outlining a quality threshold, meaning MAC will only fund those ranked highest above the quality threshold.
Scope and outputs
The MAC seeks to fund projects on the relationship between migration and housing:
A literature review covering the causal link between migration and housing (prices, rent etc.) in relevant developed economies and implications for the UK context.
This project would draw on the existing body of evidence amongst economists, demographers, and other relevant academic disciplines. It should have an international focus but prioritise findings or methodologies relevant to the UK context. We would like to understand the methodologies, approaches and results provided by international evidence on the impact of migration (or population growth more widely) on housing, as well as whether they could be applied to a UK context. These proposed undertakings are not exhaustive.
A project on the impact of migration on house prices in the UK
While the method is to be determined by bidders, the working assumption of the MAC is that we would expect/welcome econometric proposals. The project may undertake econometric analysis which quantifies the impact of net migration levels on house prices. This may include the differential impacts of migrants on housing, based on their characteristics (such as income, age, or visa route) and/or how impacts differ by factors such as rural/urban location, price band, etc. These proposed undertakings are not exhaustive.
Price
There are two funding pots for projects. The first is for a literature review, with a ceiling of £15,000, with which we intend to award one project. The second is for a more open project(s) exploring the impact of migration on house prices in the UK, with a ceiling of £60,000, with which we intend to award up to 2 projects. For this second pot, while bids must be below the funding pot ceiling we expect to see project bids at a range of prices and bidders shouldn’t feel restricted by our desire to fund up to two projects. If it is the highest scoring, we may only fund one project in this pot. Bidders may bid for projects in one or both pots.
The authors of the reports would maintain the copyright, however we will publish the reports on our gov.uk website. The bidder can advise us whether they want us to publish it under the individual’s name or using their organisation’s name.
Timescale
We expect to award contracts in April and we would hope that the projects will be completed with reports submitted and approved by the MAC by end of 2025 but are open to alternative deadlines depending on the nature of the research and whether qualitative research is used.