CMHC Announces Housing Research Award Winners

OTTAWA, ON, March 3, 2026 /CNW/ - Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced today the recipients of the 2025 Housing Research Awards. These awards recognize research excellence and provide funding to support work that will generate data and insights needed to address housing challenges in Canada.

CMHC administers the program on behalf of the Government of Canada. An initiative under the National Housing Strategy (NHS), the Housing Research Awards recognize outstanding Canadian housing research and provide monetary awards to help project teams to further research, knowledge mobilization and outreach activities that are innovative. The Housing Research Awards help to build and sustain Canada's culture of research-based housing knowledge across key fields, including the social sciences and humanities, health, and technology.

A multi-disciplinary panel of experts reviewed the applications following a rigorous set of criteria. Winning projects were deemed to have the greatest potential to produce the data and insights needed by decision-makers to improve housing affordability and better address the housing needs of Canadians.

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"For 80 years, CMHC has led housing construction innovation and knowledge development to meet the housing needs of each era. Supporting cutting edge research enables the catalyzation of new ideas in housing," said Coleen Volk, CMHC President and CEO. "Thank you to all who submitted your work for the 2025 Housing Research Awards, and congratulations to the winners. Your research highlights how digital tools, standardized design, and climate resiliency can help deliver more homes, faster, and build a resilient housing system for Canadians."

Awards:

CMHC President's Medal for Outstanding Housing Research ($25,000)
This is the highest Housing Research Awards honour, recognizing a significant research contribution that helps achieve the aspiration of making housing affordable for everyone in Canada. The medal is presented to a team or an individual who has researched one of the NHS priority areas. The focus for the 2025 President's Medal was: Accelerating Housing Supply Through Construction Innovation.

Recipient: Denisa Ionescu of BC Housing, Burnaby, British Columbia for the project Digitally Accelerated Standardized Housing (DASH). The BC Housing research team (Denisa Ionescu and research partners Cindy Moran, Helen Goodland, Michael Epp, Vincent Carignan, Franck Murat, Kelly Walsh, Chris Hill, Albert Lam and James Emery)'s DASH platform represents a transformative solution to Canada's housing crisis through digital innovation and industrialized construction. The platform includes a set of standardized, open-source, prefabricated housing components, digital tools and processes that are deployable by architects, builders, developers, and manufacturers. By integrating digital tools, prefabrication, and standardized components, DASH accelerates housing delivery – saving time and costs – while maintaining design quality and professional integrity. DASH is positioned to scale nationally, which would help deliver the millions of homes needed in Canada. Unlike one-off custom projects, DASH introduces a repeatable system that improves pipeline predictability, reduces barriers to scale for manufacturers, and accelerates the adoption of low-carbon, prefabricated construction. DASH has been launched with a focus on the mid-rise segment (up to six stories), where standardized solutions can have the greatest impact in accelerating housing delivery while meeting performance and decarbonization goals.

Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence ($12,500)
This award recognizes research that improves our understanding in one of the priority areas of the NHS and leads to impacts within the academic or housing sector.

Recipient: Dawn Parker, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario for the project: Open-source costing and market simulation tools to assess cost feasibility, real-estate market impact, and policy levers for new "Missing Middle" housing typologies. Parker's Urban Growth and Change Research Group has demonstrated how, why, and where gaps in "missing middle" housing (MMH) have emerged in the region of Waterloo over the last 15 years. This research provides a better understanding of the diverse housing needs of Canadians and address the social, environmental and economic sustainability of housing for those in greatest need. The research team is creating tools to evaluate the financial feasibility of MMH builds, based on Canada's Housing Design Catalogue. The research explains how new typologies combined with zoning changes impact land-and-housing-markets. The team has also created a multi-stakeholder Missing Middle Working Group to evaluate these costed, pre-approvable missing middle housing plan typologies.

Gold Roof Award for Knowledge to Action ($12,500)
This award recognizes projects that link excellent research to real actions that are making a difference in the housing sector.

Recipient: Kyle Mennie, Windfall Ecology Centre, Aurora, Ontario for the project Innovation in Climate-Resilient Housing - Achieving Multi-Hazard Resilience through the Weather-Ready Home Assessment Protocol. Launched in collaboration with the Regional Municipality of Durham, Windfall Ecology Centre's Weather-Ready Home Assessment Protocol will advance climate-resilient housing through assessment of home preparedness and durability to extreme weather events. Led by Kyle Mennie with research partners Brent Kopperson, Eric Lam, Shannon Logan, Sharyn Inward and Violet Kopperson, this industry-leading Protocol is the first-of-its-kind in Canada. It brings a multi-hazard lens to residential building assessment, integrating best practices across several building science sectors. The Protocol helps residents assess and improve their home's resilience to extreme weather events, including Durham's identified climate hazards, which include heavy rainfall, flooding, extreme heat, extreme cold, winter storms, high winds and severe storms. By addressing these risks, this protocol helps residents take proactive measures to protect their property and improve home safety.
 
Additional Information:

The application portal for the 2026 Housing Research Awards will open later this year. Visit our web site for more information on the Housing Research Awards.

CMHC plays a critical role as a national convenor to promote stability and sustainability in Canada's housing finance system. Our mortgage insurance products support access to home ownership and the creation and maintenance of rental supply. We actively support the Government of Canada in delivering on its commitment to make housing more affordable. Our research and data help inform housing policy. By facilitating cooperation between all levels of government, private and non-profit sectors, we contribute to advancing housing affordability, equity, and climate compatibility.

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SOURCE Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)

For more information contact: CMHC Media Relations, [email protected]