Development

Leads: Dan Goodley (University of Sheffield),  Jackie Leach Scully (UNSW), Meng Ee Wong (NIE/NTU), Tanya Titchkosky (University of Toronto) and Sandeep Singh (Ambedkar University)

Disability Matters is committed to supporting the career development of disabled and disability-positive researchers around the world. The Principle Investigator and Co-Investigators are working closely with the Research Associates on Disability Matters to put together a suite of activities that will help build this next generation of researchers.  We are committed to building a positive and inclusive research culture; creating forms of inclusive mentoring; curating a host of online resources and courses that bring in disabled learners who might have been traditionally excluded from university contexts. 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.

Developing critical disability studies literacy through diverse perspectives

A key objective of the Disability Matters programme. Our pan-national team brings with it a variety of disciplinary and practitioner backgrounds and multiple theoretical, methodological, analytical, political and policy engagement. How researchers approach disability studies inquiry will reflect their own intellectual origins and trajectories as well as their research and scholarly aspirations.  The Doing Disability Differently collective , OISE, University of Toronto deploys an approach of interpretivist scholarship, reading and writing that brings together graduate students from a host of disciplines in order to sit with the potential of disability to reimagine the kinds of questions we might ask of social institutions. Critical Disability Studies, iHuman, University of Sheffield, has been working over the last year to produce A Manifesto for Critical Disability Studies and Letters to Disability Studies. The community enjoys an interdisciplinary and international reputation for critical disability studies. We span disciplines including education, psychology, sociology, history, geography, childhood and youth, health, social policy, arts, humanities and cultural studies. One exciting development of our work in Sheffield relates to the critical, intellectual and pragmatic contributions of professional services colleagues: who are impacting hugely on the development of inclusive research culture.

The Disability Innovation Institute (DIE), UNSW Sydney, promotes inclusive research as co-production: a process of collaboration and collective decision-making, which involves changing the relations of research traditionally separating users and producers. DIE have recently launched their Doing Research Inclusively: Guidance on Ethical Issues in Co-production (October 2024) working in collaboration with people with disability in the university context in Australia. The Psychology and Child & Human Development Academic group,  National Institute of Education, Singapore,  brings together researchers from the fields of disability studies and special needs education,  with colleagues contributing towards the first edited collection of disability studies essays in the country; Not Without Us: Perspectives on Disability and Inclusion in Singapore

Disability Dialogues 

Building on the diversity of critical disability studies perspectives of our programme this venture showcases the emerging scholarship of disability researchers from around the globe. Disability Dialogues is a joint initiative organised by  iHuman, University of Sheffield; Centre for Disability Studies; University of Leeds; Disability Innovation Institute, University of New South Wales; OISE, University of Toronto, and National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University Singapore - invites short, provocative pieces from emerging scholars; thus giving them opportunities to share elements of their work. 

Researcher Networks 

We know that peer support is key to researcher development. We support the White Rose Disability Network, a collective of Post-Graduate and early career researchers, activists, and advocates based across the White Rose Universities as well as the Disability Matters Research Network. Members of the Disability Matters programme lead a number of Reading and Study Groups which help us connect with scholars from around the globe. To further bring people together we will be organising an International Exchange which will facilitate collaboration across universities. In 2026 we will be sharing a call to Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers about the details of international exchange.  Finally, our own team of researchers meet together as a Disability Matters Researcher Group to share emerging work from their phases and to collaborate through writing and discussion.

Seasonal Institutes

Finding disability studies communities can be challenging for all researchers at all stages of their career from PhD, through early, mid and senior career positions. Our seasonal institutes centre early career researchers and bring them together with other colleagues from across a host of disciplines to engage with questions of theory, ethics, methodology, analysis and writing. Examples thus far include the following. A Winter Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, November 2024: 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. A Spring Institute in Toronto, Canada, May 2025: Disability Matters ∞ Ways of Perceiving. We built on the work in Copenhagen and our Co-Investigator Professor Tanya Titchkosky and the Doing Disability Differently team in OISE, University of Toronto put together a hybrid event focused on ways of perceiving and interpretivist disability approaches in research. 

Online courses 

We are committed to the creation of online courses and are developing these in parallel with the seasonal institutes; with plans to curate and deliver an Online Indian Disability Matters course in 2026 led by Ankita Mishra and Sandeep Singh. Colleagues in the University of Toronto are also working on a new course - Disability Matters - aimed at social science and medicine students that will bring disability studies to a host of disciplines and practitioner groups. The latter has been supported by writing retreats  where are number of questions have been posed including: What does it mean that, today, disability and disability studies can be, at least partially, incorporated into the university, even though the university conceptualizes disability in non-socio-political ways enabling primarily the study of disability primarily as a bio-problem and its management as such? 

The Global Leaders in Disability and Health Research Mentoring Programme 

This is perhaps our most ambitious researcher development commitment. Our programme will work with up to 10 disabled researchers from across the world. We will hold weekly meetings with these new scholars and draw on our online courses and seasonal institute materials. In 2028 and 2029, we will draw on our transformative knowledge to support five grant applications led by our Disability Matters Research Associates, working in collaboration with disabled people. 

Research culture 

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;
• 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 Research Associates 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. 

Clearly, enhancing the career progression of disabled researchers requires a critical and affirmation engagement with the creation of positive research cultures. Depathologising the university is one approach that calls upon all university colleagues to ask ‘what is the university for?’ Answering this question encourages us to sit with the disability's opportunistic potential to (i) push back at university bureaucracy towards co-production; (ii) critically appropriate the performative university and (iii) enable access as colleagues. We recognise the responsibilities of senior university colleagues and those who lead research projects to not only commit to initiatives such as the Researcher Development Concordat but to work proactively with career aspirations of disabled researchers and professional services.