Anti-ableist developments

University researchers: Dr Lauren White and Dr Nikita Hayden*
Project Partners: Speakup Self-advocacy, Rotherham
*thanks also to Daniel P. Jones who worked on this Priority Area from May 2024 - September 2025

This Priority Areas is split into two areas of work:

Accessible Events

Problem:  Addressing inaccessible academic events that are routinely held in universities that exclude disabled people.

Strategic Plan: Devising guidelines and other creative and dialogical mediums for reflecting on and developing accessible events. We will work towards normalising accessible events. This includes resources co-produced with Speak-up Self Advocacy on Accessible Events. This builds upon the work led by our WAARC colleague Dr Antonios Ktenidis on the experiences of minoritised groups at research conferences. This was supported by colleagues at the Centre for Equity and Inclusion.  We build upon this work on accessibility guides and recommendations and do so with disabled researchers and project partners. This can include information and training resources provided to event organisers at the University.  Our overarching goal is to ensure that access is embedded, rather than treating access as an afterthought or as a response. This prioritises accessibility as core to event organising, and not an ‘additional need’ to be met.  We will conduct creative workshops with the TUOS research community in order to develop conversations and emerging considerations around accessible academic events. 

Progress on deliverables: Guidelines and other creative and dialogical mediums, and other training resources to enable conversations surrounding accessible academic events including:

Advice related to hosting inclusive events - members of our team have been involved with including Accessibility guide for inclusive university events (led by Antonios Ktenidis in collaboration with the University of Sheffield Research Culture team)  and some earlier work Antonios did with Sheffield Voices in producing an Easy read accessibility guide. Identifying inclusive practices in relation to events such as conferences is also being picked up by colleagues in the University of Sheffield including Removing Barriers: An inclusive conference for disabled postgraduate researchers (PGRs) and academic staff led by Hayley Rennie (Project Delivery Lead for Disabled PGRs Project (RPI) and Specialist Mental Health and Neurodiversity Mentor, DDSS).

A conversation about access between Dan Goodley, Lauren White, Antonios Ktenidis and Daniel P.Jones where they reflect on the meaning of inclusion in the context of the university. 

Daniel P. Jones collaborated with researchers from Durham University’s Institute for Medical Humanities and Wellcome-funded Discovery Research Platform to apply some of the findings from his WAARC research into accessible events to an internationally scaled academic event. Working as an accessibility advisor, this conference has taken a commitment to COVID-19 and airborne virus risk mitigation strategies, quiet rooms, and a variety of other access commitments that haven’t been seen before at such a large-scaled conference: International Conference: Critical Neurodiversity Studies: Directions, Intersections, Contradictions. Daniel's report is available - Inclusion and Sharing Best Practice for Academic Events Facilitation.pdf

Daniel and Lauren White have recently published a blog on the National Centre for Research Methods entitled Revisiting access and inclusion in research methods which reflects upon work that they are leading on WAARC's Priority Area 2: Developments

Inclusive Research Methods 

Problem: There is insufficient institutional knowledge about disability inclusive research methods.  

Strategic plan: A collection of ‘Disability Inclusive Research Methods’ resources aimed at postgraduate taught/research students and Early Career Researchers. This includes inclusive research resources co-produced with Speak-up Self Advocacy.  Our hope is that these resources can support conversations and a small number of workshops to enable others to do disability inclusive research. This will apply to a range of academic disciplines, and academic and non-academic partnerships. This work builds upon, and showcases, existing participatory, inclusive and disability research at the University of Sheffield and beyond. This includes the work of the Participatory Research Network who have bespoke training and resources on intellectual property, payment and remuneration and creative dissemination. It also includes the work that Speak-up Self Advocacy have led in relation to disability-inclusive research projects. 

Our intention is to consider all research stages and a broader ethos of inclusion and accessibility which may include teaching, learning and communication. We will conduct creative workshops with the TUOS research community in order to develop conversations and emerging considerations around disability inclusive research methods. 

Progress of deliverables: A collection of resources that can support conversations and workshops surrounding inclusive research methods that can be applied to a range of academic disciplines.  These include:

A new Inclusive Research Methods course for all researchers in TUOS [work in progress]

Critical reflections on an Inclusive Methods project: Nikita Hayden comes to WAARC building on her experiences with the Humanising Healthcare project - whoch showcases the humanising healthcare practices created by researchers with learning disabilities including colleagues from WAARC partners Speakup Self-advocacy and Sheffield Voices and reflects on participatory approaches to research from ethics through methods, analysis to dissemination and Open Research. Humanising Healtcare is also developing Humanising approaches to Open Data and Open Research - Nikita Hayden, Bojana Daw Srdanovic and Dan Goodley have written a document entitled 'Thinking of using this dataset? Read the team’s approach to Open Data that involves people with learning disabilities'. This explains how we have approached Open Data with a firm commitment to the lives and aspirations of people with learning disabilities - and a continued engagement with co-production. This document is a compulsory read for anyone who wants to use our data which. This document and the data can be found here deposited here

Innovative approaches to community development and disability pedagogy:

The Disability Dialogues Lounge is an online collaborative space for everyone within the CDS community to come together, guided by a key prompt for the month.

Letters to Critical Disability Studies - On the 17th July 2025, The Critical Disability Studies team met to think about who we are and the work we do within the field. This was supported and facilitated by the creative work and community spirit of Dal Kular.