THC Researchers take out the  'Most Innovative Idea' Award on an international stage

Dr Ali Lakhani and Professor Heidi Zeeman, along with their THC research team, Rafikul Islam, David Watling, Dr Courtney Wright, Dianne Smith are celebrating the win from the International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Hong Kong ISAHP2018. 

The team received the 'Most Innovative Idea' Award for their paper on 'using the AHP to establish inclusive housing development priorities for industry'. This paper is an outcome from the THC Housing project, which is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage Project) under Grant LP140100446 and industry partner, Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC). 

This is a fabulous achievement and recognition of their industry partnership process and findings relating to the AHP and is a great benefit to the project, and our industry partner, MAIC. 

The award winning paper looks at the lack of inclusive housing in Australia and globally. Due to this complex issue, researchers used an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to determine key priorities of the multidiciscipinary group of stakeholders involved. Through using the AHP model, THC researchers found that results indicated three common key drivers with all stakeholder groups, namely, ‘connectedness of end users’, ‘feasibility’ and ‘building specifications’. 

This project is leading the way in inclusive housing development and residential solutions for people with complex disability living in Australia.  The Project studied consumer expectations and preferences whilst also examining the priorities related to supported accommodation, creating an innovative systematic process of decision making and ascertaining the effectiveness of this new method in comparison to standard decision making related to supported accommodation. From their findings, researchers  found that decisions are often made without considering end user perspectives and that an emphasise on the importance of connectedness of end users as a driver for inclusive housing development to guide future design and development decisions. The results from this project will assist in the development of an resource manual and framework to assist industry throughout the inclusive housing development decision-making process, with view to improve the current shortage of inclusive housing for people with disability. 

Stay tuned for more about this project, paper and research team as the project comes to fruition later in 2018.