Promoting positive research cultures

Dan Goodley and Rebecca Lawthom have reflected on the challenges of curating more inclusive university cultures in their recent blogpost for the White Rose Consortium Disrupting the Default: Anti-Ableist Research Culture. In this piece they consider the aspirations of the WAARC team: to fundamentally reimagine and re-create an academic environment that actively values disability as a source of creativity, critical insight and collective strength.

Liz Dew and Armineh Soorenian were invited by the University of Leeds to present a keynote address - Reimagining Research Culture, Together - at the Research Culture Community of Practice Event 2025 (Leeds, 14th July 2025). In this paper the significant contributions of professional services colleagues to the promotion of positive research culture is highlighted and these contributions are taken further in this paper by Liz in collaboration with colleagues Rhea and Lucy Dunning in their popular recent paper presented as part of of the Disability Matters Online Symposia Series

The Inclusion Leadership Research Interest Group of BELMAS hosted an event on Thursday 19th June 2025, entitled ‘The Depathologising University’. The RIG’s Co-Convenors, Dr Beth Holmes, Dr Wendy Conrad and Dr Donnie Adams, were joined by guest speaker, Professor Dan Goodley, Professor of Disability Studies and Education in the University of Sheffield’s School of Education, who discussed his work in the field of Critical Disability Studies, and the ways in which academics, researchers and research professional colleagues are depathologising the disablist and ableist university. You can find a recording of Dan's talk here

Lauren White has shared some of her own reflections on promoting more inclusive research practices in Forged in Sheffield podcast series.