Vikki McCall

Professor Vikki McCall is Chair in Social Policy at the University of Stirling. Her research looks at housing and health, especially ageing, home and how people's homes can support wellbeing in later life. She is Principal Investigator on the ESRC-funded Intersectional Stigma of Place-based Ageing (ISPA) project (ES/W012677/1) and was Co-Investigator on the Designing for Healthy Cognitive Ageing (DesHCA) project.

Earlier in her career, Vikki did a lot of research on the policy process. She looked at how front-line workers, tenants and volunteers interpret policy and use their discretion when they put it into practice, and she compared policy across Scotland, England and Wales. Bridging the gap between policy and practice is still central to her work. It also shapes her forthcoming Wiley-Blackwell book, The Reflective Housing Practitioner.

Vikki teaches on the UK's oldest and largest postgraduate MSc in Housing Studies. She is co-founder and Creative Director of Socialudo, a social enterprise that designs serious games for the housing, health and social policy sectors. The games include Pathways Paradox on homelessness prevention and Hopetown on planning for the ageing demographic.

She has served on the board of Parkhead Housing Association for nine years and as a Director of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. In 2026 she joined the Chartered Institute of Housing's Professional Standards Committee. She was previously Secretary of the Social Policy Association and a member of the editorial board of Social Policy & Society.

Research interests: housing; health and wellbeing; ageing and gerontology; home adaptations and inclusive design; front-line practice and discretion; reflective practice; the policy process and governance; homelessness; poverty and inequality; serious games and participatory methods.