Transforming EDI through disability

What transformative knowledge pertaining to equity, diversity and inclusion can be generated through a focus on anti-ableist and anti-disablist practice?

Throughout all six years of the programme we will generate knowledge exchange that informs policy, strategy and practice of health research and research culture. We will capture and disseminate EDI in relation to inclusive scholarship, disabled people’s health priorities, participatory research methodologies, positive research cultures, affirmative disability representation and early career researcher development.

Some early discussion of the possibilities and challenges of this work is offered in  this piece by Dan Goodley and iHuman colleague Kirsty Liddiard.

In 2024, Disability Matter's PI Dan Goodley and other University of Sheffield colleagues secured a two year WAARC: A Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture Award.  In the research culture of the higher education environment, driven by productivity and excellence, disabled researchers, professional colleagues and disabled participants  of being are perceived to disrupt the ableist order with their different ways, and are often sidelined and subject to a range of hostilities and exclusions (Goodley et al. 2024). The Wellcome Anti-ableist Research Culture (WAARC) project addresses this omission by bringing together researchers at all career stages and professional services colleagues from across the University of Sheffield (TUOS) to develop a suite of activities that centre disability and contest systemic ableism in academia. Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril, Armineh Soorenian, Daniel Jones, and Sophie Phillips are the project Research Associates and will deliver the work. They are supported by the wider team and academic leads, including Dan Goodley, Rebecca Lawthom, Katherine Runswick-Cole, Kirsty Liddiard, Antonios Ktenidis, Lauren White, and Elizabeth Dew. We will also work with four Disabled People’s Organisations (DPO) as Project Partners. Pathfinders Neuromuscular Alliance, National Association of Disabled Staff Networks (NADSN), Sheffield Voices and Speak Up Self-Advocacy will help in leading, designing and managing the project. All of these partners will be compensated for their input and expertise. Together we will focus on three Priority Areas and two cross-cutting themes - areas and themes that will drive conversations between WAARC and Disability Matters teams in relation to:

• Priority Area 1 - Environment - promoting forms of inclusive recruitment and work practices
• Priority Area 2 - Development - generating Accessible university events and inclusive research methods training
• Priority Area 3 - Collaboration - putting disabled people front and centre of research culture inquiry
• Cross Cutting Themes -  Institutional Engagement and Key Performance Indicators - iaising with existing EDI networks and stakeholders in the University of Sheffield, including the Disabled Staff Network, the Emotionally Demanding Research Network, and the LGBTQ+ Staff Network, to promote the WAARC project.

Updates from WAARC can be found here