Housing and Communities Annual Lecture (May 2025)

About:

We are delighted to be welcoming Gavin Smart (Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Housing) as our guest speaker for our 2025 Housing and Communities Annual Lecture - 'Perspectives from the Profession'.

This event will be held from 09:30-12:00 on Friday 16th May at The Banqueting Suite, Birmingham Council House, Birmingham. The lecture will commence promptly at 10am so we ask for you to arrive at the Council House no later than 9.30am.

With special thanks to the West Midlands Housing Association Partnership (WMHAP) for sponsoring this key event for the West Midlands region.

THE FORMAT:

The schedule for the session is:

09:30 – 10:00     Guests arrive, teas, coffee and breakfast rolls served

10:00 – 11:00     Guest Lecture from Gavin Smart (Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Housing) 

11:00 – 12:00     Networking over tea and coffee

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS:

Gavin Smart is the CEO of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) the professional body for people working housing across the UK and beyond. He leads the CIH across the full range of its activities; ensuring it provides quality services and support to its members, taking forward its role to train and qualify the wider housing profession and is regularly involved its policy and good practice work, engaging with government at all levels across the UK, all of which is undertaken in the public interest as required by CIH’s Royal Charter.

Prior to becoming CEO Gavin served as both Deputy CEO and, before that, Director of Policy and Practice.

Before joining CIH Gavin worked at the National Housing Federation (NHF), the trade body for housing associations in England, latterly as Assistant Director for Research and Futures where he led the NHF’s research and analysis function, it’s future facing thinking and it’s policy work on finance and government investment.

Gavin joined the NHF from a spell working for the UK civil service commissioning research and analysis into a variety of housing policy areas.

He began his career as an academic researcher at the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.

Dr Halima Sacranie is the Director of Housing Research at the Centre for the New Midlands, having taken on this new position in February 2024.

Halima completed her PhD at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at the University of Birmingham in 2011, which was the regional centre of excellence for housing policy research, working with leading housing academic Prof David Mullins to establish the Housing and Communities Research Group (HCRG) at the University of Birmingham. Following Prof Mullins’ retirement, Halima took on the leadership of HCRG from 2018 to 2023.

Halima’s recent research includes being the UK academic partner on CHARM (Circular Housing Asset Renovation & Management), a 4-year EU funded project led by TU Delft in the Netherlands, that aimed to develop an asset management approach to prevent the downcycling of materials in the renovation and construction of social rented dwellings. Halima’s work on the project focused on the impact on, and role of tenants, across the partner organisations adopting Circular Economic principles in their social housing case studies. Other recent projects include a 3-year study on Housing Quality, Neighbourhoods and Resident Wellbeing with VIVID Homes, and a 2-year study with the Gambling Commission and Birmingham City Council on harmful gambling and tenancy insecurity.

Halima is currently leading an evaluation of the West Midlands Social Housing Quality Fund programme which has been commissioned by the West Midlands Combined Authority. Previous public grant evaluation work has included the national and regional evaluation of the Empty Homes Community Grants Programme, and Halima has undertaken research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Nationwide Foundation and the ESCR.

Through her research experience, Halima has developed a strong understanding of the housing policy and built environment context in the West Midlands, as well as a familiarity with key stakeholders in the range of sectors encompassed by the housing and communities’ agenda.

In her role as Director of Housing Research at the Centre for New Midlands, Halima is building a programme of research with the ambition to establish the thinktank as the new centre for excellence for regional housing policy research. Halima is also currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, a Research Fellow at Aston University and a Trustee of the charity Climate Outreach.

ABOUT OUR EVENT SPONSORS:

West Midlands Housing Association Partnership (WMHAP), supports the West Midlands Combined Authority and the elected Mayor to deliver on their social and economic plans for the region.

The partnership brings together more than 30 housing associations so that we can speak with a single voice on key issues. Together, we own a total of 120,000 homes across the Midlands.

Contact Event Organiser