Real Estate and Construction
The Department of Real Estate and Construction is known for its research across a range of fields, including international land and property markets, housing policy, construction and project management, and sustainable real estate and urban development.
We offer the following research degrees, including MAs by research:
- MPhil
- MPhil transferring to PhD
- PhD direct, possible for students with a recently completed master’s degree in an area closely related to the proposed research topic.
Support and Supervision
You can expect:
- Excellent research facilities and a friendly environment with high calibre supervision for pursuing research activity in a wide range of topics at both national and international levels. Where appropriate the department will involve experts from elsewhere in the university, or from external institutions.
- A strong network of support due to the large community of researchers and scholars that exist within the department and with other departments such as the School of Architecture and the Department of Planning. These include regular student and staff led research seminars and other forums for debate and exchange of ideas.
- To be allocated an appropriate research group in the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD) and where possible you will be given the opportunity to work with staff on on-going research projects.
- Opportunities for research collaboration, synergy, study visits and exchanges. Both staff and research students are active in publishing their findings in leading international journals.
Research Areas
You can undertake research degrees in the following areas:
- Sustainable real estate (residential and commercial sectors)
- Brownfield regeneration
- Urban futures and scenario-based studies
- Globalisation, land markets and urban development in developing and transition economies
- Impact of ICT on the property market and urban development
- Conservation of historic environments
- Changing property markets and local economic development
- Housing and land policy
- Valuation
- Corporate real estate
- Climate change and sustainable construction
- Carbon foot printing and waste management
- Collaborative planning and supply network management
- Procurement, project and process management
- Whole-life cost and value modelling
- Risk analysis and management
- Lean construction and applied operations research
- Sustainable building maintenance
- Scaffold and pallet rack structures
- Emerging technologies and innovations for sustainable buildings
- Social networks and innovation diffusion
- Information and knowledge management
- Advanced ICT and applied artificial intelligence
- Knowledge-based decision support systems
- Building Information Modelling (BIM)
- Virtual prototyping.
We also welcome applications from students with related topics.
Research Centres
- Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD) – the largest academic research institute working on sustainable development in the built environment in the UK.
