Development

Disability Matters will design and deliver a new researcher development programme aimed at early career researchers (ECRs); the project PDRAs and other post/doctoral healthcare researchers in our five institutions.

Theorising Disability, Researching Disability and Engaging Publics Online Courses (lectures, blogs, workshops) will introduce contemporary developments in disability and health research. A four day Researching Disability Online Summer Institute will build the emerging scholars community supplemented by a student-led Monthly Meeting.

To trial arrangements around the institute and summer school, the Disability Matters team have teamed up with Aarhus University to deliver an Engaging with Critical Disability Studies: New Perspectives and Established Dilemmas, 14 - 15 November 2024. We will be exploring different materials, pedagogy and access arrangements.

An annual ‘Disability Matters Globally’ e-pub will showcase scholarship, the International Exchange will facilitate collaboration across universities. In 2025 we will be sharing a global call to Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers about the details this international exchange with provisional plans to hold a first face to face in Toronto, Canada.

Our new Global Leaders in Disability and Health Research Mentoring Programme  will be opened 10 disabled researchers from across the world.  In years 5 and 6, we will draw on our transformative knowledge to support five grant applications led by our PDRAs, working in collaboration with disabled people.

The PI and CoIs of Disability Matters - along with their host universities - have signed up to a Mandate for Researcher Development and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Towards Supportive Research Environments that commits us to: 

• An inclusive recruitment process for the Research Associates /early career researchers and Programme Manager that actively seeks applications from individuals with lived experience of disability and those from black, neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ backgrounds (from job advertisement to recruitment processes – and in line with HR practices); 
• Provide PDRAs/Project Manager with bespoke Research/Career Mentors;
  Ensure PDRAs are given leadership opportunities in relation to scholarship, empirical work, analysis and dissemination which are reviewed through annual review processes; Ensure the Programme Manager is given opportunities for career development including shadowing and mentoring;
• Develop a new Global Leaders in Disability and Health Research Mentoring Programme that builds on our mentoring of our Co-investigator, Singh, the PDRAs and the Programme Manager and open to 10 additional disabled researchers from across the world. 
• Support PDRAs to lead their own grant applications in years 5 and 6; 
• Adopt an inclusive approach to participant recruitment to ensure that our research captures the perspectives of disabled people from some of the most marginalised communities; 
• Enhance the involvement of disabled people and their organisations in health research through our International Research Advisory Board; 
• Support the concurrent commitments of the Universities involved in this project to EDI (including disability, race, gender, sexuality) by sharing our good practice with senior colleagues through committees/working groups; 
• Promote literacy in relation to research integrity (Open Access, Open Data/Management).

We are working with our PDRAs and Programme Manager on a bespoke programme of career development activities that have equality, diversity and inclusion as a central concern. At the start of each year and in subsequent annual reviews, at least 10 days of development activities will be agreed with colleagues to avail themselves of specific support from our universities. 

Our aspirations are clear; Disability Matters seeks to interrogate and embody Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in health and science. We are committed to the creation of anti-ableist research cultures wherein disabled researcher and research professionals can thrive and flourish.