Disability Matters

A major six year pan-national programme of disability, health and science research, funded by a Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award (2023 - 2029)

Disability Matters

On X (formerly known as Twitter): @DisMatters

Instagram: @disability_matters

Disability as driving subject of inquiry

Our Universities

A global collaboration of universities committed to transforming health research and environments through a paradigm shift to disability as the driving subject of inquiry

Our university collaborators

The logo of the Wellcome Trust

Our Funders

Our project is funded by a Wellcome Discretionary Award - find out more about our funders

Wellcome Trust website

News

Latest news from the Disability Matter's team

Link to news from the Disability Matters team

Collaboration

Image 'wheelchair barbie from the 90s hangs with the disability politics books" by Liz Henry is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Disabled People's Organisations

Our International Research Advisory Board includes representatives of disabled people's organisations from five countries who will hold the research programme to account: to ensure the aspirations of disabled people are represented in our work

Our DPO partners

An image of the office windows of the Arts Tower University of Sheffield - original image 'A tidy mess' - arts tower, university of sheffield, england" by Paolo Margari | paolomargari.eu is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. — "a tidy mess - arts tower, university of sheffield, england" by Paolo Margari | paolomargari.eu is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

An international team of researchers

We bring together a team of disabled and non-disabled researchers from India, Singapore, Australia, Canada and the UK

The Disability Matters Research Team

An image of a disabled activist holding a sign reading 'Nothing about us without us' by Elisney is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Our aims

We want to challenge the 'absent presence' of disability in science and research.

Disability Matters has a number of ambitious aims

Work

An image of the spines of a number of critical disability studies texts

Scholarship

How is health research, theory and scholarship transformed by an engagement with critical disability studies?

Find out about online symposia, conferences and conversations

'Arrests of disability activists at protest of California health care budget cuts' by Steve Rhodes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Priorities

What are the health priorities of disabled people in Australia, Canada, India, Singapore and the United Kingdom?

More on online world cafes, priority setting and policy analysis

Methodologies

What kinds of research methodologies represent disabled people and their health priorities?

Online methodology workshops and crowd-sourced portal

A collective of dolls presented on a window sill to capture community

Environments

How does the presence of disability enable more inclusive health research environments?

Our plans to research and inform university cultures

Representations

In what ways can we reimagine representations of disability in health research?

Rethinking disability representations in the science and health sector

A photo image of Frida Kahlo warning against the dangers of commodifying equality and diversity

Development

How do we build a new generation of disabled and disability-positive health researchers?

Our plans to support a new generation of researchers

Outputs

Transforming EDI through disability

Our ambitious plans to transform Equality, Diversity and Inclusion through disability

Transforming EDI through disability

Knowledge Exchange

Our aspirations to share knowledge across the university, health and science sectors

Sharing knowledge

spiral metal images of disability and ability

Publications

Publications from the Disability Matters team

Publications from Disability Matters