Alan Murie is Emeritus Professor of Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has been involved in a wide range of research on urban and housing issues for more than 50 years: initially at the then University of Ulster and later at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at Birmingham University, the School for Advanced Urban Studies, Bristol University, the Department of Planning and Housing, Herriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and again at Birmingham University where he was Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies and then head of the School of Public Policy.

Pat Niner worked for many years at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. She carried out a number of policy-related research studies of different aspects of the British housing system.

Christopher J. Watson (1940-2019) graduated from University of Bristol in 1962 where he gained a BA Hons degree in Geography. After leaving Bristol, he was employed as a Geography Tutor at a Field Study Centre in Northumberland for three years. He left to become an Administrative Assistant at the University of Sussex 1966- 68 and later joined the Scottish Office in Edinburgh where he worked in the Government Housing Research Unit. In 1972 he moved to the University of Birmingham where he became a Senior Lecturer in Urban and Regional Studies and undertook various aspects of Housing Research and contributed to a number of publications including Housing Policy and the Housing System (1976). He retired from the University of Birmingham in 2005, but retained his interest in housing policy and development in the UK and other European countries, also South Korea and Japan where he travelled extensively.