September 2023 brought the launch of a new six year programme of research funded by a Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award

Disability Matters aims to transform health research and environments through a paradigm shift to disability as the driving subject of inquiry.

I am so excited to launch Disability Matters. This is an ambitious programme of work that hopes to develop anti-ableist and anti-disablist approaches to scholarship; broaden health research priorities, innovate research methodologies, promote inclusive research environments, encourage more positive disability representations and build a new generation of disabled and disability-focused health researchers. Our programme of work will generate transformative equity, diversity and inclusion knowledge; thus supporting Wellcome’s strategy to lead the science and health sector in challenging ableism and disablism in the practices and cultures of health research. Most importantly the work foregrounds the contributions of disabled researchers and disabled people's organisations as they lead new ways of thinking about disability, health, research and science.

Dan Goodley

Lead Investigator​​​

As part of the first phase of work, join us in December 2023 for a series of Online Symposia. We'll be welcoming 12 different disability studies presenters from around the world to explore how their work has been transformed by engaging with critical disability studies.

Tue 5 Dec 2023 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM GMT, Online, Zoom

Shaun Grech

Shaun Grech is a Senior Academic Consultant in Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction with CBM, director of The Critical Institute (Malta) and editor in chief of the international journal, Disability and the Global South. His critical interdisciplinary work looks at disability in contexts of rural poverty, disasters and humanitarian settings.

Jan Grue

Jan Grue is a professor of Sociology at the University of Oslo. He is currently PI of the research project “The Politics of Disability Identity”, which investigates the contemporary social and cultural preconditions of disability inclusion. His memoir “I Live a Life Like Yours” (2021) is published by Pushkin Press in the UK.

Gareth Thomas

Gareth M. Thomas is a Reader in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK. He is a sociologist interested in disability, health/illness, medicine and reproduction.


Mon 11 Dec 2023 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM GMT, Online, Zoom

Christina Lee

Christina Lee (she/her) recently completed her PhD in English and Medical Humanities at King’s College London. Her thesis was titled ‘The Care of the Dis-ease Self: A Foucauldian Reading of Buddhist Meditation Memoirs as Narratives of Healing’. Her research looks at experiences of illness and disability, embodiment, and intersectionality.

Stuart Murray

Stuart Murray is Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film in the School of English at the University of Leeds. He has worked in Critical Disability Studies for over 20 years, written/edited multiple books and articles on disability representation, and was among the very first University academics to teach courses on disability, literature, film and cultural theory.

Sana Rizvi 

Dr Sana Rizvi is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Early Childhood Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. She is passionate about teaching on the subjects of racial inequalities in education, critical perspectives on disability studies and inclusive education, and on qualitative methodologies. She has presented her research at several international and national conferences, and has also published research in the field of research methods, racial inequality and disability studies.