9 1��Ѱ���

Introduction by Dan Goodley

Welcome to “Professional Services, Disability & Inclusive Research Cultures”, an online event hosted by Disability Matters. 

Disability Matters is a major six year pan-national programme of disability, health and science research, funded by a Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award.  

I’m Dan Goodley - the Principle Investigator - and I work in the iHuman research institute at the 9 1��Ѱ��� of Sheffield. I’m a white, early 50s, cisgendered bald man wearing fabulous clothes, many of them sewn by my own fair hands. My preferred pronouns are he/him. I am a member of the TAB community. 

A key ambition of Disability Matters is to make disability the driving subject of research. One element of our programme promotes scholarship that demonstrates the contribution of disability studies to a host of fields and disciplines. Over the course of the project we are going to run a number of short and accessible online symposia. We are delighted to be joined by three brilliant speakers today and would like to thank them for their work for this event. We are particularly excited by the presentation today which foreground the work of professional services colleagues who are central to the building of inclusive and positive research cultures.

The format of this event will be as follows: 

• Introduction (10 minutes)
• Three presentations (3 x 10 minutes) - papers can be found here.
• Q&A & open discussion (20 minutes) 

Duration: 1 hour 

For access reasons, we are committed to sticking to time. 

Housekeeping & Access 

• The papers being presented today are available on our website so you can follow as our speakers present. You can find this link in the chat.
• Having cameras on is completely optional.
• If you wish to access English live captioning, you can turn this on by clicking the Live Caption option in the meeting toolbar below.
• British Sign Language interpretation is being provided throughout by our interpreter Rosie. If you require BSL interpretation, please pin the interpreter to your screen by clicking on the three dots on the top right corner of the interpreter’s video and select ‘pin’. This will ensure that the interpreter is visible on your screen at all times. If you experience any issues with this, please let us know in the chat.
• The symposium will be recorded and made available on our website. We will now start the recording. Please note we will stop recording before we start the Q&A and discussion, so the latter part of this session won’t be recorded.
• Please direct questions to the Q&A box in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. These will then be read out loud later on.
• Do make yourself comfortable in this event and if you feel you need to leave the call at any point for any reason, please feel free to do so.

For the papers 

The papers that will be presented can be found here. 

Introduction of the Speakers 

Rhea Halsey is the Project Manager for Disability Matters and is crucial to its day-to-day running. She brings together our academic and professional services colleagues, as well as external community partners, to achieve the aims of the programme. Rhea studied at the 9 1��Ѱ��� of Leeds, going on to work in the student union movement and the private digital sector, before joining Disability Matters at the 9 1��Ѱ��� of Sheffield in 2023. 

Liz Dew is the Project Coordinator for the Wellcome Trust Anti-ableist Research Culture project. Liz finds meaning in work rooted in social justice. She's driven by a desire to question conventional wisdom and dismantle normative assumptions that shape our workplaces and the wider world. Liz's varied career in Higher Education began in widening participation at the 9 1��Ѱ��� of Salford, leading to involvement in diverse outreach and social justice initiatives across the sector,  as well as time in central services and student support. Before joining the 9 1��Ѱ��� of Sheffield, Liz was project manager at the Refugee Rights Hub — a project dedicated to reuniting refugees with their family members.

Lucy Dunning is an Operations Manager supporting the strategic day-to-day functions for the Social Research Institutes at 9 1��Ѱ���. In this role, Lucy oversees a range of processes, working with others to align operational practices with the department’s academic mission and institutional goals.
Prior to joining 9 1��Ѱ���, she held roles at WWF and Auckland Council. Lucy is passionate about fostering inclusive, efficient, and high-performing academic environments. 

Q&A and Open Discussion 

• Please submit any questions in the Q&A function and we will read them aloud.
• If you would like to ask a question in BSL, please use the ‘raise hand’ function on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen and we will spotlight you so you can communicate directly with our interpreter.
   

Conclusion 

• Thank you to Rosie, our BSL interpreter, for her work in making this event more accessible.
• Thank you all for taking the time to join us today. We hope you enjoyed today's event.
• You can send us your comments via email or social media, details of which will be in the chat.
• We will be running more events and will announce these on our website and social media. We are also looking to open an event mailing list soon.