IDEAL EU Project Ideathon: Housing Crisis and Rising Rents in Europe (09/07/2026)

Challenge Topic

Housing Crisis and Rising Rents in Europe: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions

Across Europe, housing affordability has deteriorated significantly over the past decade. Rent prices have risen faster than household incomes in many urban areas, making access to affordable housing increasingly difficult for students, young professionals, families, key workers, and even middle-income households.

Participants are invited to investigate factors contributing to the crisis, including:

• inflation and increasing construction costs;

• population growth and urbanization;

• insufficient housing supply;

• tourism and the expansion of short-term rental platforms;

• foreign real-estate investment;

• demographic changes;

• regulatory barriers;

• energy costs and sustainability requirements.

The objective is not only to identify the underlying causes but also to propose feasible, evidence-based solutions capable of generating measurable social impact.

Working Process

Participants work in multidisciplinary teams of approximately four members, resulting in around twelve competing teams during the event.

Throughout the Ideathon, teams receive guidance from the IDEAL platform and the IDEAL chatbot, which provides information, suggestions, references to open datasets, and methodological support for developing their proposals.

Each team is expected to investigate the housing challenge using reliable evidence and open data. The use of publicly available datasets is a mandatory component of the competition. Teams are encouraged to analyse European, national, and local data sources to better understand housing affordability, rental prices, demographic trends, housing supply, and socioeconomic indicators.

Where possible, participants should include quantitative analyses, visualisations, indicators, or simple impact assessments demonstrating the expected effectiveness of their proposed solution.

Proposal Submission

Each team prepares a concise one-page proposal describing its idea.

The proposal should clearly explain:

• the identified problem;

• supporting evidence from open data;

• the proposed solution;

• the expected impact;

• implementation considerations;

• stakeholders involved;

• scalability across Europe.

The proposal is submitted electronically through the IDEAL platform, which serves as the central collaboration and evaluation environment for the event.

In addition to the written proposal, every team uploads its presentation slides through the platform before the pitching session.

Presentation Session

Each team presents its proposal during the onsite Ideathon.

Every presentation lasts 10 minutes, during which participants explain:

• the problem they addressed;

• their analysis of available data;

• their proposed solution;

• implementation strategy;

• expected societal, economic, and environmental impacts;

• recommendations for adoption at European, national, or city level.

Presentations are designed to encourage discussion and comparison of different approaches while promoting knowledge exchange among participants.

Voting and Community Evaluation

One of the distinguishing features of the IDEAL Ideathon is its participatory evaluation process.

After all presentations have been completed, every participant individually evaluates the submitted proposals through the IDEAL platform.

Each participant receives three votes, which may be distributed among the proposals they consider most innovative, impactful, feasible, and evidence-based.

Beyond numerical voting, participants are also invited to submit comments explaining their evaluations.

Comments may include:

• strengths of the proposal;

• constructive criticism;

• implementation concerns;

• policy recommendations;

• suggestions for improvement;

• reasons supporting or opposing the proposal.

To encourage honest and open discussion, comments can be submitted either anonymously or with the participant's identity visible.

This transparent peer-review mechanism transforms the Ideathon into a collaborative learning experience rather than merely a competition.

Scope of Proposed Solutions

Teams are encouraged to think across multiple governance levels and develop recommendations that may include:

European Union level

• EU housing policy initiatives;

• funding mechanisms;

• common regulatory frameworks;

• cross-border data sharing;

• incentives for affordable housing investment.

National level

• taxation policies;

• rental market regulation;

• housing subsidies;

• incentives for sustainable construction;

• public-private partnerships.

City level

• urban planning measures;

• zoning reforms;

• affordable housing developments;

• management of short-term rentals;

• digital monitoring tools;

• community housing initiatives.

Solutions may also compare experiences from different EU Member States, identifying transferable best practices and successful policy models.

Expected Outcome - Prize - Recognition!

At the conclusion of the Ideathon, the IDEAL platform aggregates all submitted proposals, presentation materials, voting results, and participant comments.

The highest-rated proposals, together with the accompanying qualitative feedback, are summarised into a final report highlighting the most promising ideas, common recommendations, innovative practices, and recurring themes identified during the event.

The ultimate objective is to produce a community-driven, evidence-based collection of policy recommendations that reflects the collective expertise of participants.

The winning proposal—or a synthesis of the strongest ideas emerging from the Ideathon—will be delivered to The European Housing Alliance for further discussion and consideration. This ensures that the outcomes of the event extend beyond the competition itself, providing valuable input to stakeholders engaged in shaping future housing policies across Europe.

Through this collaborative process, the IDEAL EU Project Ideathon demonstrates how digital participation platforms, open data, interdisciplinary teamwork, and citizen engagement can generate practical, data-driven solutions to complex societal challenges while fostering innovation, transparency, and democratic participation in European policymaking.