About us

Lemos&Crane has provided practitioners and policy-makers with information for action on social problems since 1994. We work with professionals in social housing, local government, criminal justice agencies, schools and voluntary organisations as well as trusts and foundations.

Over 27,000 people are currently registered to use Lemos&Crane websites to learn from research projects, improve ways of working and share good practice. Lemos&Crane conferences give delegates the ideas and tools for making a difference in their work. Alongside the websites, conferences and research projects we maintain an online network, including exciting awards programmes. You are welcome to join now and view free materials from this website.

Recruitment - view our current vacancies

Our people

Gerard Lemos CMG

Gerard leads the research team at Lemos&Crane. He is the author of several books and reports about social policy and supporting vulnerable people. His publications include The Communities We Have Lost and Can Regain (co-authored with Michael Young). His most recent book, The End of the Chinese Dream: Why Chinese People fear the Future was published by Yale University Press. He has written for the New York Times, The Guardian and the BBC.

He is Chairman of the Money Advice Service, Vice-President of the British Board of Film Classification and a trustee of London University and the Dartington Hall Trust.

He chaired the Board of Trustees of the British Council from 2009 to 2010 having been a trustee since 1999 and Deputy Chair from 2005. He was a visiting Professor at Chongqing Technology and Business University between 2006 and 2010. Gerard has formerly been an Audit Commissioner, a Civil Service Commissioner and a non-executive director of Crown Prosecution Service.

Paul Crane

Paul is co-founding partner and is responsible for eLearning studies and publishing at Lemos&Crane. He is the author of two civil rights handbooks, a Cambridge University law graduate and former solicitor. As a lawyer he specialised in civil rights work; he took part in the landmark case before the European Court of Human Rights that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. Paul has worked in general and legal book publishing both as a commissioning editor and publisher. Prior to initiating web development over ten years ago, he published more than 50 books and reports at Lemos&Crane. Paul's voluntary board experience includes acting as governor-trustee for an international college between 2005 and 2010.

Carwyn Gravell

Carwyn is a partner at Lemos&Crane, leading the development and promotion of Lemos&Crane's online training and conference programme, and also for instigating and contributing to new projects on a range of high profile social issues. He is the author of Loneliness and Cruelty: people with learning disabilities and their experience of harassment, abuse and related crime in the communityand Lost and Found: faith and spirituality in the lives of homeless people Carwyn is a philosophy graduate from Warwick University and also a qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He has worked at Lemos&Crane since 1997.

Amy Dunnigan

Amy is responsible for membership renewals and event administration. She also maintains the LiteracyActionNet and PrisonerActionNet websites, has been involved in the Voice and Community project, and tweets on behalf of Lemos&Crane. She has a degree in Urban Studies from the University of Minnesota. Her past experience includes time at HomeBase, a law and social policy centre on homelessness, Anishinabe Wakiagun, a home for formerly homeless Native Americans, a year as a project worker for the Simon Community in London and as assistant food shelf coordinator at Branch Two. She was responsible for online and journal memberships at the Directory of Social Change before joining Lemos&Crane in 2005.

Jan Hart

Jan is the accounts administrator at Lemos&Crane. After graduating in music followed by a short spell at BBC radio production she set up her own arts admin business in 1998 and subsequently moved sideways into bookkeeping. Since then she has built up a solid portfolio of clients and joined the team at Lemos&Crane in 2005. Outside bookkeeping she keeps a foot in the music camp by running her own classical record label.

Ellen Kythor

Ellen is part of membership services, promoting our online resources and providing information about our systems to new and subscribing members. Most of her work is telephone-based, giving guided demonstrations of our resources to interested practitioners. She also occasionally provides introductory face-to-face presentations. She graduated from University College London (UCL) in 2008, and completed her MA (also at UCL) in 2010, which she studied part time over two years. She has worked at Lemos&Crane since 2008.

Sarah Frankenburg

Sarah is the research assistant at Lemos&Crane, responsible for supporting partners’ research projects. She is currently working on Bad Weather, Good Habits: Encouraging Social Housing Tenants to Save More, and is researching charitable projects and programmes being undertaken in prisons to support offender rehabilitation. She has recently completed work on City Bridge Trust's Growing Localities, on the value of nature for emotional and social wellbeing. She has a BSc in Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method from LSE, and an MSc in The History of Science, Technology and Medicine from Imperial College and UCL, awarded in 2012.

Jack Gowers

Jack is the web and database assistant at Lemos&Crane. He is responsible for the provision of online content and administrative duties. He has a BSc in Economics and Statistics from UCL, completed in 2012.

Contributing writers

Professor Caroline Hunter

Caroline Hunter is a Professor of Law at the University of York Law School. She is also the Deputy General Editor of Journal of Housing Law and the Lawyer Chair of the Residential Property Tribunal Service.

Jane Petrie

Jane Petrie is the Course Leader for undergraduate housing students at Sheffield Hallam University. As a solicitor she has worked for housing users and a large local authority.

Peter MacMahon

Peter MacMahon is a former Deputy Local Government Ombudsman. He has worked as a lawyer in local government the voluntary sector.

Dr Helen Carr

Helen Carr is Deputy Director of Teaching and Learning at the University of Kent Law School and the author of Law for Social Workers. Helen's research interests lie primarily in the fields of Housing, Social Welfare and Public Law. She is interested in the regulation of the poor especially the homeless, the asylum seeker, the anti-social and those in need of care. Helen is particularly concerned with the gendered and racialised dimensions of regulation. She is currently completing a book on the governance of housing from the 1830s. Helen is also working with the Welsh Government on the reform of housing law.

Professor Martin Partington QC CBE

Martin Partington has been a part-time chairman of social security appeal tribunals and was the social security editor for the Industrial Law Journal. He continues to write the UK entry on social security for the International Encyclopaedia of Law. Martin served on the Law Commission for seven years.

Professor Isobel Anderson

Isobel Anderson is Chair in Housing Studies in the School of Applied Social Science at the University of Stirling, where she teaches on the MSc/Diploma in Housing Studies. She is on the International Advisory Committee of the European Journal of Homelessness, and is a board member of Scottish Homeless Action.

Joe Crawford

Joe Crwford teaches housing law on the University of Stirling’s MSc/Diploma in Housing Studies, and is currently completing a PhD on evictions in the social rented sector, also at Stirling University. He previously worked with Shelter for 10 years.

Regina Serpa

Regina Serpa is a Research and Teaching Assistant with the Housing Studies team at the University of Stirling and is a Research and Information Officer with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. Her most recent research includes modelling impacts of welfare reform on housing associations, achieving the 2012 homelessness target, and addressing the disrepair of owner occupied housing in Scotland.