GLADNET: Promise and Legacy

[Excerpt] The Global Applied Disability Research and Information Network on Employment and Training (GLADNET) was launched by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1995, in cooperation with over 50 social policy research centres, governmental and non- governmental organizations involved in disability-related employment programmes from over thirty countries around the world. Major organizations of persons with disabilities were also represented – the World Blind Union, the World Federation of the Deaf, Inclusion International (formerly the International League of Societies for Persons with Mental Handicap (ILSMH)) and Disabled Peoples International (DPI). GLADNET’s lifespan was little more than a generation (1995 – 2018). What’s of interest is that it survived beyond its first few years of existence. It could easily have died early on, given a significant change in nature of support from its initiating body. That it didn’t speaks to the aspirational nature and relevance of the vision prompting its formation. It’s in pursuit of that vision where GLADNET left its mark. This document focuses on its legacy, beginning with a brief review of context within which it was initiated

CreaTable Content and Tangible Interaction in Aphasia

Multimedia digital content (combining pictures, text and music) is ubiquitous. The process of creating such content using existing tools typically requires complex, language-laden interactions which pose a challenge for users with aphasia (a language impairment following brain injury). Tangible interactions offer a potential means to address this challenge, however, there has been little work exploring their potential for this purpose. In this paper, we present CreaTable – a platform that enables us to explore tangible interaction as a means of supporting digital content creation for people with aphasia. We report details of the co-design of CreaTable and findings from a digital creativity workshop. Workshop findings indicated that CreaTable enabled people with aphasia to create something they would not otherwise have been able to. We report how users’ aphasia profiles affected their experience, describe tensions in collaborative content creation and provide insight into more accessible content creation using tangibles

How Do They Do It? EFC Members Share Good Practice on Organising Accessible Events

This publication of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) Disability Thematic Network features case studies by European foundations who each share their insights and lessons learned from organising accessible events that are inclusive for persons with disabilities. Alongside the case studies is a checklist for events planners to use when organising accessible events, both offline and online, covering everything from initial planning, through to communications around the event, venues, and sessions. A set of recommendations on how to make the process easier and more efficient is also included

Lifelong guidance policy and practice in the EU

A study on lifelong guidance (LLG) policy and practice in the EU focusing on trends, challenges and opportunities. Lifelong guidance aims to provide career development support for individuals of all ages, at all career stages. It includes careers information, advice, counselling, assessment of skills and mentoring

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

Exploring leaders\u27 sensemaking of emergent global norms for open science: a mixed methods discourse analysis of UNESCO’s multistakeholder initiative

In November 2021, all 193 United Nations Member States adopted the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO, 2021a), which signaled a shared commitment to globally recognized standards for open science. However, as with other normative instruments established by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) such as UNESCO, the ways in which local, national, and regional leaders will implement the recommendation can and will vary (Finnemore, 1993). Top-down and bottom-up coordination across international stakeholders in the research system is critical for the framework to be effective in driving global policy implementation and enabling sustained research culture change. Such international coordination necessitates an understanding of the complex economic, socio-political, and cultural dimensions that exist among these stakeholders and may influence local implementation efforts and norm-setting (Martinsson, 2011; Nilsson, 2017). This mixed methods study explores leaders’ sensemaking of emergent global norms for open science through public discourse during the development of UNESCO’s recommendation. The central research question is: How did institutional leaders make sense of emergent global norms for open science during UNESCO’s multistakeholder initiative? The study is situated at the intersection of systems thinking, global norms, and sensemaking, using a social constructionist lens. A synthesis of study findings draws two conclusions: That there is evidence in the discourse of accelerating self-organization toward open science among Member States who responded to UNESCO’s call for commentary on the draft recommendation; and that there is also evidence in the discourse of a degree of instability around prospective norm diffusion and internalization of the Recommendation on Open Science (2021a) related directly to matters of implementation. The tension between emergence and instability is well documented throughout the literature across complex systems, global norms, and sensemaking. Therefore, the study supports the ongoing exploration of global norms development and, specifically, the critical progression from norm emergence to norm diffusion. Given the theoretical coherence of complex systems, global norms, and sensemaking as evidenced throughout the findings, the novel integrative analytic frame that was developed during the design of this study may support other global norms development studies