Setting an Emancipatory Agenda: Disabled People's Research Network (360G-Wellcome-222872_Z_21_Z)

Social science research has long been criticised for failing to improve the life chances of disabled people. Current research agendas are determined ‘top down’ by policy makers, and researchers risk objectifying disabled participants by conducting research ‘on’ them (as opposed to ‘with’ them). Our radical and exciting proposal challenges the status quo by developing an inclusive agenda and establishing a Disabled People’s Research Network. Our vision is to place academic and non-academic disabled people at the heart of research development, and our entire project will be co-produced by working with disabled people’s organisations. Our activities will identify new salient questions and reinvent social science methodology by exploring how the arts and humanities can enable disabled people to evidence and share their lived experiences. We will develop more inclusive forms of knowledge exchange between universities and disabled people, and we will work with policy makers to maximise disabled people’s research impact. We will empower disabled people as agents of change and our activities will include a range of fellowships for disabled people and a highly innovative research training course led by disabled people. Our network will reinvent how universities work with disabled people, in addition to methodological and epistemological development.