HCDI produces independent research on the conditions, challenges, and opportunities facing communities in East London. Our findings inform local services, shape policy conversations, and give residents a voice in decisions that affect them.
Our research covers economic opportunity, social mobility, health inequalities, and community resilience across East London.
Examining the economic impact of Bangladeshi-owned businesses in Spitalfields, demographic changes reshaping the area, and what this means for community identity and local prosperity.
Read ArticleHow owner-managed businesses in Tower Hamlets and Newham adapted, what support reached them, and what gaps remain three years on.
Request ReportA survey of 400 households on the intersection of precarious employment, unaffordable rents, and access to local authority support.
Request ReportMapping digital confidence, device access, and training take-up across six wards, with recommendations for commissioners and providers.
Request ReportBarriers to NHS talking therapies, the role of community organisations as first point of contact, and demand for culturally sensitive provision.
Request ReportTracking 16 to 24 year olds from school leaving through first employment, identifying where interventions make a measurable difference.
Request ReportBarriers to self-employment and employment for women across Bangladeshi, Somali, and Pakistani communities in inner East London.
Request ReportEvery project connects to one or more of the long-running themes HCDI tracks across East London.
Access to employment, self-employment support, the living wage, and the informal economy.
Affordability, displacement, regeneration impacts, and the social effects of rapid change in East London.
Device ownership, connectivity, digital confidence, and the training infrastructure to support it.
Mental health access, health literacy, preventative care, and the social determinants of health.
Social trust, civic participation, and how communities maintain solidarity under economic pressure.
Education outcomes, aspiration, and the factors that allow young people to build different lives from their parents.
Our approach is built around community trust. We do not extract data; we work alongside residents to understand what their lives are actually like.
Research questions are developed with residents, not handed down from researchers. The community shapes what gets studied.
Surveys and interviews conducted in Bengali, Somali, Arabic, and English to reach communities often excluded from standard research.
We combine quantitative surveys with in-depth interviews and focus groups, so numbers are always accompanied by lived experience.
All reports are published openly and shared back with communities. Data is anonymised and stored securely under our data governance policy.
Local authorities, NHS bodies, housing associations, and grant-makers commission HCDI to carry out research they cannot reach on their own. Our relationships with communities across East London give us access that formal institutions find difficult to build.
We can design bespoke surveys, conduct focus groups, produce rapid evidence reviews, or act as a community research partner on larger funded projects.
Tell us a little about what you need. We will come back within two working days.
HCDI reaches the residents, business owners, and families that standard research misses. If you want to understand East London, talk to us first.