REP Research Roundup - June 2026
Departmental News
Complete University Guide 2027 Ranking
The university of Reading leads, retaining number one in Land & Property Management in the Complete University Guide 2027 ranking and number 13 in Town & Country Planning and Landscape Design (new entry). Overall, the University is 43 in the UK out of 130 institutions ranked. The Complete University Guide 2027 in full is available online.
On Tuesday, 12th May 2026, undergraduate students specialising in Real Estate and Planning took part in the Dragons’ Den 2026 competition, the culmination of Henley Business School’s Real Estate Entrepreneurship and Technology (RE2ENT) module. Led by Dr Matteo Borghi, Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the competition challenged students to harness emerging technologies to reshape the real estate sector — bringing bold, viable, and sustainable business ideas to life. 125 students across 22 teams competed over three months, developing their concepts from scratch before pitching to a panel of ten industry Dragons. Three teams emerged as winners: DealSeal — Ali Abbas, Selihom Abraham, Olivia Adamson-Wielgus, Edward Bowers, Mateusz Cieslukowski, and Mahdi Kalouti
A platform for assessing buyer reliability and transaction risk in UK residential property. DealSeal addresses one of the sector’s most persistent pain points — fall-throughs and unreliable buyers — by providing agents and vendors with data-driven risk intelligence at the point of offer.
AthleteStay — Chris Clinton, Jacob D’Cunha, Lucas Defise, Ted Naughton, Mikaella Philokyprou, and Mikayla Saw
A digital platform that helps athletes find accommodation near training and recovery facilities through sport-specific and proximity-based filters. AthleteStay bridges a gap that mainstream property portals have long overlooked, serving a growing community of professional and semi-professional athletes seeking specialist housing solutions.
MycoShield 🏅 Grand Champion — Nathan Aryitey, Carine Chai, Isabella Harvey, Fergus Lindley, Louie Preston, and Charlie Slocombe
An on-site bio-fabricated insulation solution, grown where it’s needed. MycoShield delivers retrofitted shipping containers to building sites that can grow mycelium-based insulation in just 5–10 days, replacing carbon-heavy materials such as mineral wool, PIR, and EPS at the moment of use. A compelling blend of sustainability, innovation, and commercial viability that convinced the Dragons to award them the highest honour.
MycoShield was crowned Grand Champion recognising the strength of their concept, the rigour of their business model, and the quality of their presentation. The team will be invited to visit Savills’ headquarters in London as their prize.
Reading Real Estate Finance Consortium
We were delighted to host our early-career academics and PhD students at the Reading Real Estate Finance Consortium on the 8th of June. Seven working papers spanning urban studies, data science, ESG, energy efficiency, and asset pricing were featured. It was a pleasure to meet everyone, discuss research and exchange ideas. We would also like to extend a special thank you to our Early Career Researcher mentoring panel members for generously sharing their time and invaluable advice with participants.
Real Estate Finance London Trip
On 27th May, our MSc Real Estate Finance cohort, under the leadership of Dr Yuan Zhao, Programme Director of MSc Real Estate Finance, undertook a field trip to London, providing students with valuable exposure to industry practitioners and international peers. The programme included a session on REIT pricing delivered by Adam Shapton of Green Street, followed by presentations on new development projects from Sam Palkof Yard Nine and David Knightsbridge of Henderson Park. The visit also provided an opportunity for our students to connect with their counterparts from the Harvey Lindsay School of Real Estate and the E.V. Williams Center for Real Estate. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Adam, Sam, and David for generously sharing their time and expertise with our students. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Harvey Lindsay School of Real Estate and the E.V. Williams Center for Real Estate for facilitating this valuable exchange.
Undergraduate London Walking Tour
Part One undergraduate students went on a walking tour of London on May 11th organized by Xiaolun Yu and guided by Jorn Van de Wetering and Jane Batchelor. The students learned a lot about commercial real estate and urban regeneration from visiting the King's Cross redevelopment area, Battersea Power Station, the New London Architecture London Model, and the City of London office areas.
The Department of Real Estate and Planning hosted the third University of Reading Workshop in Urban Economics and Economic Geography on June 4 and 5. This two-day research workshop included keynote lectures by Philip McCann (Manchester) and Yanos Zylberberg (Bristol), policy panel focused on housing affordability joined by Christian Hilber (LSE), Stanimira Milcheva (UCL) and Filipa Sa (King’s), and four parallel sessions themed around public policies and local labour markets, planning regulation and environmental issues, housing markets, and agglomeration and economic geography. In total 38 papers were presented by researchers from across the UK and abroad.
Ziyou Wang – British Academy (resubmission)
- Title: A polar bear in the fridge: Climate change in everyday lives
- Total bid: £9,808
Jiarong Li – British Academy (PI is Xuchang Chen in IBS)
- Title: National Identity in Corporate Strategy: Government Support and Market Interpretation
- Total bid: £9,908
Yiquan Gu – Royal Society
- Title: Economic Development and Social Governance in Resource-Based Regions
- Total bid: £11,96
Publications
Gu, Y. and Wenzel, T. (2026) Product differentiation, economies of scale and entry. Economics Letters.
Abstract
This paper extends the standard circular city model of spatial competition to incorporate economies of scale. We demonstrate that new market entry generates a negative externality by fragmenting demand and forcing existing firms to operate at a less efficient scale. This scale-fragmentation channel widens the wedge between private and social entry incentives, leading to an amplified excess-entry result. When firms can endogenously invest to lower their unit costs, market entry remains socially excessive.
Parker, G. , Lynn, T., Sturzaker, J. and Wargent, M. (2026) Just Neighbourhoods? under-representation in community-led planning activity in the UK. Report. University of Reading, Reading.
PHD NEWS
Conference attendance
Daza Hoyos, R (2026) Decolonising the Discourse of Community Land Trust: Exploring Indigenous Models for Communal Land Stewardship in Epistemically Marginalised Countries, LASA2026: Republic and Revolution, 29th, May.
