Disabled people in the UK face a variety of barriers to equality including poverty, poor access to health services, unequal access to the law and poor support services in everyday, family and higher educational settings, as shown by previous research.
A new three-year study has been awarded £1.4 million from the ESRC to understand what is needed to tackle these barriers and develop strategies to overcome them.
The project, led by Dr Val Williams of the Norah Fry Research Centre at the University of Bristol, will find out what theoretical ideas about disability have practical worth, and aim to develop and sustain improved practices that are on the terms of disabled people themselves.
Dr Val Williams said: “It is great news for the whole team that we have secured this funding to work on a project which is essentially about change. We are looking forward to working closely with disabled people themselves, and welcome Disability Rights UK as a partner in this project. We hope to be able to have conversations in this research which reach across different fields, and to be able to think together about how to tackle barriers that disabled people face in society.”
The project team includes colleagues from other leading universities, the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTI) and Disability Rights UK (DRUK).