SNG carries out a variety of housing-based research - delivered in-house or in partnership with others - which helps us to inform our business decisions, share best practice across the social housing sector and contribute to the debate on local and national policy.
We also respond to government and sector consultations, directly or as a member of various groups.
In addition, as a leading housing association, we are keen to innovate and drive change for the benefit of our customers and communities, so we also conduct research into how we can better gather insight and data to improve our services
As part of our recent 50th anniversary celebrations, we also published SNG@50 - a collection of essays from a wide range of contributors on the state of social housing now, what we can learn from our past and hope to see in the future.
Resident of the Future report
Our Resident of the Future report focuses on how our customer base will evolve and change over the next 10 years. The research was carried out following a recommendation from the Housing Ombudsman in their Relationship of Equals spotlight report. Here, they called for landlords to undertake a forecast so that they can create long-term plans on how to better approach resident vulnerabilities.
Resident of the Future report [pdf, 5.33MB] 
G15 research
We are part of the G15 group of London's largest housing associations. You can find out more about the G15’s latest research on its website .
CASE research
We are also a member of the the Consortium of Associations in the South East (CASE) - a research group of 12 housing associations with homes across the South East of England. The CASE website holds the latest research reports by the Consortium .
Decarbonising existing homes
We are committed to decarbonising our housing stock and achieving net zero carbon by 2050 and this will involve a significant programme of investment, retrofit and regeneration.
The Greener future page explains our ambitious retrofit programme, working with expert partners to improve the fabric of our existing homes and install the best energy-efficient heating. Or read more below about how our retrofit research is helping us engage better with customers and minimise any disruption to them from works.
Pilot project on microbore retrofit
We're carrying out several pilot projects to trial different heating and hot water technologies. This will enable us to find the best approaches for future phases of our long-term retrofit programmes. One pilot is with Mitsubishi Electric into installing Ecodan high temperature air source heat pumps.
Ecodan brand ambassador, TV presenter and architect George Clarke, visited one of the homes in the pilot and said: "What Mitsubishi Electric and SNG are doing here is industry game-changing. Retrofitting a gas heating system with a high temperature heat pump, reusing microbore piping and radiators, is paving the way for mass market adoption of renewable heating."
Retrofit for the future: tenant attitudes to decarbonising social housing
Prior to the Sovereign and Network Homes merger, Sovereign also carried out qualitative research to examine customers’ views on the environment and climate change, and how these might influence how they engage with our decarbonisation strategy.
Providing hardship support: lessons for the social housing sector
In response to the cost-of-living crisis, many social housing providers have implemented, or extend existing, hardship support schemes targeted at those who are struggling financially - but there has been little documented evaluation or best practice research conducted in relation to their introduction.
Providing hardship support: lessons for the social housing sector [pdf, 589KB] , has been produced as part of an independent evaluation of SNG’s own Customer Support Fund and provides key learning points for social housing providers as regards the development and delivery of effective hardship support schemes.