NUVIV: Millennium Nucleus on Chile's Housing Challenges

NUVIV: Millennium Nucleus on Chile's Housing Challenges

NUVIV is a large-scale research project funded by the Millennium Science Initiative of Chile's National Research and Development Agency (ANID). As a millennium nucleus, NUVIV is a collaborative effort aimed at strengthening national scientific and technological excellence, while disseminating and transferring knowledge to other sectors of society.

Critical challenges

Its main goal is to develop robust analytical frameworks and comprehensive intervention strategies that, by articulating multiple dimensions, address five critical housing challenges identified by the nucleus:

  • Housing deficits and affordability crises.
  • Informality and migration.
  • Conflicts over housing access among individual and collective actors.
  • Housing sustainability in the face of climate change.
  • Inequalities, violence and gender roles in housing and neighborhoods.

Multidimensional approach

This multidimensional approach integrates social, economic, spatial, political-institutional and cultural dimensions, aiming to overcome the historical fragmentation of housing studies and contribute to coherent policies that are sensitive to the complexity of Chile's housing phenomenon.

Research lines

Line 1: Structures, Policies and Supply

NUVIV's first research line examines housing as a material, institutional and economic structure. Its focus is on the dynamics of housing production and supply, State intervention, land use, housing finance and real-estate market regulation.

Research activities in this line include evaluating housing policy instruments, analyzing public investment allocation and efficiency, and identifying the institutional factors that drive sector fragmentation. Disciplines that converge here include political economy, urban planning, public policy and geography.

Through solid diagnostics and comparative evaluations of housing systems, this line seeks to generate applicable knowledge to guide public policy decisions with greater precision and effectiveness.

Investigadores responsables: Javier Ruiz-Tagle (PUC), Margarita Greene (PUC) and Carlos Aguirre (USS).

Line 2: Agency, Access and Lived Experience

NUVIV's second research line explores housing through social practices, cultural meanings and the everyday access and adaptation strategies of people. Its focus is on the use value of housing, gender and intergenerational dynamics, informality and households' capacity to act in the face of housing challenges.

Activities in this line include in-depth fieldwork, participatory mapping and ethnographic case studies. Drawing from sociology, anthropology and feminist urban theory, this line highlights how housing is inhabited, negotiated and contested in the everyday life of different social groups.

Both lines —structural and lived— foster a transdisciplinary research environment that links structural analysis with situated knowledge, enabling a multidimensional understanding and the co-production of articulated diagnoses and integrated intervention strategies.

Investigadores responsables: Macarena Bonhomme (UNAB), Elizabeth Zenteno (UPLA) and Alex Paulsen (UCM).

Objectives

General objective

Articulate the multiple dimensions of housing to develop solid analytical frameworks and comprehensive strategies that effectively address Chile's critical housing challenges, integrating both structural analysis and the lived experiences of its inhabitants.

Specific objectives

  • Develop and consolidate a multidimensional analytical framework that integrates structural and production dynamics as well as housing agency and consumption.
  • Collect and analyze quantitative data on housing markets, policy instruments, sociodemographics and urban development patterns in Chile.
  • Explore lived experiences, cultural meanings and everyday practices through qualitative and participatory methods, with special attention to vulnerable groups.
  • Apply the theoretical framework to territorial case studies in northern, central and southern Chile, enabling interregional comparisons that enrich the analysis.
  • Formulate comprehensive, evidence-based policy recommendations that foster cross-sector dialogue, knowledge transfer and institutional innovation in housing.