The International Social Housing Festival (ISHF) 2025, an initiative of Housing Europe, brought more than 1,800 international delegates from over 60 countries to Dublin, creating a global platform for conversations on one of society’s most pressing challenges: how to deliver not just housing, but thriving communities. The festival, hosted by the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) and Co-operative Housing Ireland (CHI), was intentionally designed to leave a legacy that would endure long after delegates returned home.
From the outset, organisers were clear that success would be measured by more than attendance figures or economic impact. The ambition was to create meaningful change—locally, nationally and internationally—and to ensure that the people most affected by housing policy were placed at the centre of the conversation.
Designing for Impact from Day One
Working alongside Fáilte Ireland, the National Tourism Development Authority of Ireland, Conference Partners International (CPI), Housing Europe and the Irish Council for Social Housing, the ISHF Dublin 2025 organisers embarked on an intentional impact journey, embedding social objectives into the festival’s design from the earliest planning stages.
The approach aligns with Ireland’s Business Events Strategy 2030, which seeks to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits created by business events. ISHF 2025 stands as one of the country’s first examples of an intentional impact project designed to deliver measurable community value alongside economic returns.
The question was never simply how to deliver a successful event, but how to create value that would extend beyond the two and a half days in Dublin.
The result was a festival model that prioritised collaboration, creativity and human connection. This deliberate approach created an environment where diverse perspectives could be heard together, breaking down silos and fostering new ways of thinking about housing challenges that are increasingly shared across the globe.
The Impact Report produced following ISHF 2025 evaluates the outcomes of Ireland’s inaugural intentional-impact business event project. Using the #MEET4IMPACT Logic Model methodology, the report details how the festival delivered an estimated €3m economic impact for Dublin while advancing two core pathways: Tenant Empowerment and Ecosystem Collaboration.
It features key data, survey metrics, and evaluation frameworks from the “From House to Home” tenant oral history project and the Knowledge Sharing Network Breakfast hosted with Fingal County Council.
Putting Tenant Voices at the Heart of the Conversation
Perhaps the most significant legacy of ISHF 2025 was its commitment to ensuring that social housing tenants were not merely discussed, but actively heard.
Under the theme of “Storytelling”, the festival launched From House to Home, an oral history project that captured the lived experiences of people who have lived, or are currently living in social housing across Dublin. Positioned prominently at the entrance to the Convention Centre Dublin, the exhibition invited delegates to listen to personal stories through audio recordings and portraits, creating an immediate reminder that housing is ultimately about people, communities and belonging. This approach embodied the principle of “nothing about us without us”, ensuring that lived experience remained central to every discussion.
Creating a Living Legacy
Recognising that meaningful impact must extend beyond a single event, the ISHF team developed an Oral History Toolkit to enable future host cities to replicate and expand the initiative. Delegates were encouraged to adopt the methodology within their own organisations, creating opportunities for communities elsewhere to capture and share their own stories.
The ambition is now even greater.
What began in Dublin as a local storytelling project is evolving into a living international repository of tenant experiences. Future editions of the festival, beginning with Lisbon in 2027, are expected to add new voices and perspectives, creating a growing archive that reflects the diverse realities of social housing communities across Europe and beyond.
This evolving collection represents more than a legacy project; it establishes a framework through which future generations of housing practitioners, policymakers and communities can learn from one another and maintain a connection to the people they serve.
ISHF 2025: How Dublin Embraced Storytelling to Illuminate the International Social Housing Festival
A Legacy Built on Collaboration
The impact of ISHF 2025 extends beyond the housing sector itself. The festival demonstrated that international meetings can become vehicles for meaningful change when legacy considerations are integrated from the beginning. Practical resources, including digital exhibition assets and transferable frameworks, are already being shared with future host cities to ensure that the model continues to evolve and grow.
The success of ISHF 2025 was ultimately rooted in co-creation. This collaborative model enabled difficult conversations to take place constructively and demonstrated that even within a challenging housing environment, shared purpose can create optimism and momentum for change.
The legacy of ISHF 2025 therefore extends far beyond Dublin. It lives on through stronger international networks, new approaches to measuring impact, practical tools that future hosts can adopt, and, most importantly, through the growing collection of tenant stories that will continue to shape conversations about social housing for years to come.
By putting people first and ensuring that every discussion began with the voices of those who call these places home, the festival achieved something far more lasting than a successful event: it created a blueprint for how global gatherings can build stronger, more inclusive communities long after the final delegate leaves the room.
Resources
From House to Home: Oral History Project
Listen to the Audio Files and view / download the toolkit here
ISHF 2025 has been selected as a finalist for the $20,000 Main Grant of the 2026 Incredible Impacts Programme, an initiative co-founded by ICCA and BestCities Global Alliance in 2017 to recognise and support international association meetings that create positive societal impact and lasting legacies beyond tourism.
The three finalists will present their projects during a plenary session at the 2026 ICCA Congress in Panama City this November.
Further Reading
Fáilte Ireland Case Study Series:
- TRANSFORMING RURAL HEALTH: A Tale of 3 Meetings
- IGC 2024 Dublin: Celebrating a World of Difference, Creating a Lasting Legacy
- International Newborn Brain Conference 2024 – Protecting the Newborn Brain
- The Power of Ambassador Programmes: Stimulating Societal Value
- Autism Europe Congress: From Inclusion to Impact – Redefining What’s Possible Through Cocreation
