Prof Dan Goodley. Prof Rebecca Lawthom (Education/iHuman, University of Sheffield), Prof Meng Ee Wong and Kerri Heng Yi Ping (National Institute of Education/ Nanyang Technological University) hosted the Disability Matters Spring Institute 2026 in Singapore NTU @ one-north campus in early March 2024.
This Institute brought together Singaporean disability researchers and other colleagues from Singaporean universities to explore the productive impact of disability in the university context. It has also cemented a decade-long scholarly relationship between the University of Sheffield and National Institute of Education/Nanyang Technological University.
This Spring Institute centralised the perspectives of Singaporean disability studies researchers and research professionals with contributions from UK colleagues and boasted nine original paper presentations; a workshop that captures examples of anti-ableist practice in Singaporean universities from 24 participants and provided Dan and Rebecca the opportunity to reflect on the findings from three projects:
Humanising Healthcare
Economic and Social Research Council
Disability Matters
Wellcome Discretionary Award
Wellcome Anti-ableist Research Culture
A Wellcome Trust Institutional Funding for Research Culture Award
A number of questions were considered as part of the institution:
- What might it mean to engage with disability as the driving authority in rethinking the university?
- In what ways do disabled academics and professional services colleagues experience the university?
- And how can we make our university environments more welcoming, more inclusive and more attractive to disabled staff?
- What approaches and models of co-production should be developed in research?
- What key issues and questions animate the work of Singaporean Critical Disability Studies scholars.
