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 a housing and communities policy researcher and completed her PhD at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2011, a regional centre of excellence for housing research. She went on to lead the Housing and Communities Research Group at the University of Birmingham from 2018 to 2023.

In her capacity as Director of Housing Research at the Centre for the New Midlands, Halima recently led the evaluation of the West Midlands Social Housing Quality Fund programme, a £15 million grant programme to tackle severe damp and mould in social housing in the West Midlands. This study was commissioned by the West Midlands Combined Authority and conducted between February to November 2024.

In January 2025 Halima embarked on an exciting new research project programme at the Centre for the New Midlands, working with the research group Social Life, to develop a Decent Neighbourhood Standard, with the first demonstrator project underway in partnership with community-led housing organisation Witton Lodge Community Association in North Birmingham.

Previously, at the University of Birmingham, Halima was the UK academic partner on CHARM (Circular Housing Asset Renovation & Management), a 4-year EU-funded project led by TU Delft in the Netherlands. The project aimed to develop asset management approaches that prevent the downcycling of materials in the renovation and construction of social rented dwellings. Her research centred on the impact on, and role of, tenants in implementing circular economy principles across partner organisations. Other previous projects based at Aston University include a 3-year study on Housing Quality, Neighbourhoods and Resident Wellbeing with VIVID Homes, and a 2-year collaboration with the Gambling Commission and Birmingham City Council examining harmful gambling and tenancy insecurity. Halima’s earlier work includes national and regional evaluations of the Empty Homes Community Grants Programme, alongside research projects funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Nationwide Foundation, and the ESRC.

With extensive experience in applied housing research, Halima has developed a strong understanding of the housing policy and built environment landscape across the West Midlands, and works closely with stakeholders across the housing, regeneration, and community sectors. As Director of Housing Research at the Centre for the New Midlands, Halima is building a new programme of research with the ambition of establishing the think tank as a new leading centre for housing policy research. Halima also currently holds roles as 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