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Enabling equality: furthering disability equality for staff in HE

Informed by in-depth interviews and a widely distributed survey of disabled staff in higher education institutions, this research identifies ten areas that are influential in shaping the experiences of disabled staff in the workplace, and offers recommendations for best practice.

The research, jointly funded by ECU and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, makes it clear that although the sector has come a long way in advancing disability equality for students, a range of work still needs to be done to support disabled staff.

This guidance offers practical, evidence-based advice. Areas covered include:

  • Progress: good practice in the sector
  • Aspiration and reality: disparities between policy and practice
  • Inconsistencies: understanding and awareness
  • Lagging behind students: less support for disabled staff
  • Declaration: supporting the right conditions
  • Entitlement: reasonable adjustments
  • Funding: inefficient systems
  • Mental health: taking a positive approach
  • Disability-related discrimination and harassment
  • Engagement: involving disabled staff

‘Disabled staff still experience inequality of opportunity, and in some circumstances unintended discrimination. There is no place for such a waste of human potential in our institutions’

From the foreword by Professor Michael Brown CBE DL, vice-chancellor, Liverpool John Moores University and Sir Bert Massie CBE, governor, Liverpool John Moores University.

Enabling equality: furthering disability equality for staff in HE - PDF version
01/09/2011
Enabling equality: furthering disability equality for staff in HE - PDF version View Document
Enabling equality: furthering disability equality for staff in HE - WORD version
01/09/2011
Enabling equality: furthering disability equality for staff in HE - WORD version View Document

The materials published on this page were originally created by the Equality Challenge Unit.