Institutional Dynamics and Housing Actors: Observation and Cross-Border Governance
The project aims to establish a housing observatory for the Greater Region, with a particular focus on institutional dynamics and housing stakeholders in a cross-border context. By fostering a better understanding of these dynamics, the project seeks to support knowledge, exchange and informed policymaking on housing issues across the Greater Region.
Duration: 3 years
Active: January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2028
Funding agency: INTERREG Grande Région (https://interreg-gr.eu/)
- FEDER - Fonds européen de développement régional
Total budget: 2 065 232,90 €
Cofinancing: 1 177 182,72 € (FEDER: 57%)
Project PI: Magdalena Gorczynska-Angiulli
Contact : Dialog@liser.lu
The metropolisation of Luxembourg has triggered dynamics of interdependence and functional specialisation between the cross-border territories. The economic polarisation of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is accompanied by an intensification of residential flows towards the border regions. This has led to a surge in housing demand, rising property prices, migratory movements (both crossborder and within the territories), and an exacerbation of socio-spatial segregation. As a result, there is increasing pressure on land use and urban sprawl.
To address these challenges more effectively, the objective of this project is to enhance cross-border governance within the Greater Region and especially the Luxembourg functional area, focusing on the following key areas: housing stock, housing affordability, demographic change and No Net Land Take.
Key Topics:
To achieve this, a co-creation approach that actively involves public authorities at the local, regional, and national levels, along with scientific partners from all five regions of the Greater Region, will be prioritized.
Collectively identify shared cross-border challenges within the three priority areas of the project
Enhance mutual understanding of the cross-border impacts of national and local policies within these areas
Co-create strategies for territorial action that address these challenges through authentic crossborder governance
Work Package 1: Shaping the Future by Understanding Today's Challenges
Reinforcing cross-border housing governance starts with understanding the real challenges people face. Work Package 1 brings together housing stakeholders to identify the most pressing issues affecting housing and the built environment across the study areas, ensuring that future solutions are grounded in lived experience and local realities.
Using a participatory design thinking approach, stakeholders play a central role in defining the challenges that the project will address. An online survey captures insights from a broad and diverse community, helping to identify key priorities and emerging concerns. These findings are enriched through in-depth interviews that explore stakeholders' experiences, perspectives, and needs, creating a deeper understanding of the different viewpoints shaping housing challenges. Finally, collaborative focus groups transform these insights into a shared agenda by identifying the challenges that will drive the project's co-creation process.
By placing stakeholders at the heart of the process from the very beginning, Work Package 1 establishes a strong foundation for reinforcing cross-border housing governance that respond to real needs and create lasting value for communities.
Coordinator: LISER – Christophe Sohn
Work Package 2: Building a Shared Evidence Base for Better Housing Decisions
Effective housing policies depend on reliable, comparable, and accessible data. Work Package 2 establishes a shared evidence base by bringing together and harmonizing existing housing and spatial planning data from national and regional statistical organisations as well as from other providers of benchmark data.
From this, the project develops a set of comparable indicators that provide, for the first time, a cross-border picture of housing and spatial development. These indicators are co-designed with project partners and stakeholders to ensure they are both relevant and practical for decision-makers.
2026.12.03 webinar (https://www.liser.lu/en/events/2026-12-03_DIALOG_webinar )
For further impacts and research outputs, see https://liser.elsevierpure.com/en/projects/dynamiques-institutionnelles-et-acteurs-du-logement-observation-e/
To ensure their dissemination and long-term availability, the indicators will be integrated into the SIG-GR platform, a platform that is already operational and which will enable to access, update and reuse them beyond the duration of the project.
Work Package 2 also lays the foundations for more sustainable and better-coordinated monitoring of housing in the future. The work carried out will help to further harmonise data collection and processing practices and will result in recommendations for European institutions, notably Eurostat, the Directorate-General for the Environment and ESPON, in view of improving the comparability of housing statistics at European level.
Coordinators: Liège Université – Charlotte Bernier | AGAPE – Michaël Vollot
Work Package 3: Cross-Border Studies
Work Package 3 strengthens the shared understanding of housing challenges across the Greater Region by delivering comparative, cross-border analyses dedicated to housing in its six territories. Focusing on four strategic themes—land-use change, housing stock, access to housing, and residential mobility—it provides a robust evidence base to support informed policymaking and cross-border cooperation.
Building on the harmonised indicators developed as part of Work Package 2, Work Package 3 transforms data into knowledge that can be put to immediate use. The results will be disseminated in the form of concise policy briefs and in-depth thematic reports, providing decision-makers, practitioners and researchers with accessible, comparable and immediately actionable analyses to support decision-making.
Coordinators: Liège Université – Jean-Marc Lambotte | Universität des Saarlandes – Carole Fricke | PMF – Marie Azambre
Work Package 4: Good Practices in Housing within the Greater Region
Work package 4 aims to identify, analyse and promote best practice in the field of housing within the Greater Region. By highlighting innovative initiatives and successful experiences, it encourages the sharing of solutions that can be adapted and replicated in other local contexts. It addresses a wide range of housing-related issues, which fall within the same key areas as the previous work packages. The focus groups on net-zero land use, energy efficiency and demographic change bring together experts on the respective topics.
By analysing and promoting tried-and-tested solutions, Work Package 4 provides policy-makers, professionals and other stakeholders with a source of practical inspiration for tackling common housing challenges. The exchange of best practice enhances learning, fosters cross-border collaboration and supports the development of housing policies that are more effective, sustainable and tailored to the realities of the Greater Region
Coordinators: Liège Université – Emma Gisinger | Universität des Saarlandes – Carola Fricke | Universität Trier – Michael Miessner
Work Package 5: Co-Designing Cross-Border Governance
Work Package 5 transforms research into action by co-designing and testing innovative solutions aimed to reinforce cross-border housing governance across the Greater Region. Building on the design thinking approach initiated in Work Package 1, it brings together partners and stakeholders to collaboratively develop, test, refine, and validate practical solutions tailored to cross-border housing issues.
Coordinator: LISER – Christophe Sohn
