ABSTRACT
Most housing research is directed towards something better than the current situation. Moreover, decision-makers are faced with a disparate array of housing research. It is characterised by different epistemological and ontological approaches and a broad range of methods. Bernard Lonergan proposed a form of specialisation, Functional Collaboration. It divides up the work according to stages or functions within the whole process from data to results. A phenomenology of research asks the researcher to heighten their experience of asking and answering questions, to heighten their experience of doing research. Housing researchers are socialised and acculturated within some culture before they become researchers. The future of housing research depends upon housing researchers meeting this key challenge as it now emerges in history. Functional Collaboration is a transdisciplinary, transcultural solution to the emerging problems in science. It larger context is the challenges that humanity faces; people's current inability to deal with the environmental, financial, economic, social, political and cultural crises of their time.
