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`Scrounger', `cheat', `skiver' - Disabled people are feeling increasingly threatened by how they are represented in the media. University of Glasgow research has provided strong evidence of this negative shift in media coverage of disability issues. The 2011 findings have received widespread attention, have critically informed public and political debate and have substantially shaped the work of NGOs and advocacy groups. They have provided organisations with clear research evidence to inform their campaigns by defining and quantifying misrepresentations in the media and the effects on audience perception of these issues, helping to support calls for change in public attitudes to issues of inequality.
Research by Jonathan Wolff provided the intellectual framework for pioneering work on self-directed support in social care by In Control, a national charity whose mission is `to create a fairer society where everyone needing additional support has the right, responsibility and freedom to control that support'. Wolff's work with In Control has shaped recent government policies including the Putting People First strategy (adopted 2008), which have improved health provision generally and service provision for disabled persons in particular. The specific impacts described here are (1) shaping government policy at both a national and local level and (2) improving the health and quality of life of more than 600,000 disabled citizens and their carers by improving service delivery.
Anna Lawson's research into disability equality and human rights has shaped and strengthened the disability policy of the European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE).
The research formed the basis of a new EU-wide system for tracking the progress being made by 34 countries in implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 (Disability Convention).
Lawson's research also shaped the content of a CoE Recommendation (issued to its 47 Member States) on the political rights of disabled people. In particular, her research influenced the CoE's ground-breaking decision to include an explicit recognition that mental disability never justifies the deprivation of voting rights.
McKeown is a major exponent of Disability Arts. Through his creative work in animation and performance he works to affect popular assumptions about disability. He seeks to affirm disability as a social construct and his work reflects, deconstructs and engages with the concepts of normalcy and the abnormal. He has become an important proponent of disability issues because of the international reach of his practice as an artist. His work stresses the pride and self-confidence of the disabled and expresses their wish to participate in, and be full members of, society. He has reached a large public and affected the terms of debate of the issues he acts as an ambassador for.
Research led by Professor Mark Priestley at Leeds increased the democratic participation of policy users in the disability field and shaped public policy, law and services across the European Union (EU). Collaborative research methods provided the knowledge and skills for disabled people's organisations to change the investment priorities of European funding programmes. A seven-year programme of comparative research provided the evidence and tools for the European Commission to develop disability policies and fulfil EU treaty obligations to the United Nations. The impact pathways are based on (a) strategic partnerships with research users, (b) policy relevance in the underpinning research, and, (c) direct inputs to EU policy process. These pathways are illustrated with reference to two EU-funded projects (value in excess of €4m).
A policy proposal to reduce the system of disability benefits received by 2.44 million over-65s across the UK was abandoned in 2012, partly as a result of research conducted at the University of Essex. The research team highlighted a flaw in the income analyses which were used in Government to suggest that disability benefits often go to older people without substantial financial needs. Defining income more appropriately, the team's research showed instead that recipients of these benefits would be on low incomes if disability benefits were not provided. The findings were quoted extensively by the Health Select Committee in making its recommendations, and the policy change has been abandoned.
Research in the area of Critical Disability Studies carried out at Manchester Metropolitan University has directly led to a change in government policy on the family finding process for 4,000 children in the UK currently awaiting adoption. At both national and regional level, the research has influenced the provision of services for disabled children and their families, ranging from the commissioning of short break services to funding decisions for charity. The research has also influenced the strategy of Scope, the disability charity, with regard to resilience in disabled people's lives, and contributed to the training of teachers for children with learning disabilities.
A potential policy change concerning disability benefits for older people (received by 2.44 million over 65s in Britain), which would have been based on an incorrect premise, has been avoided, partly as a result of research carried out in the submitting Unit. We highlighted a flaw in the income measure in analyses used in Government to conclude that disability benefits go to older people without substantial financial needs. Measuring income appropriately, our research showed that recipients of these benefits in fact tend to be on low incomes. We were quoted extensively in a Health Select Committee report and elsewhere. The policy change has been abandoned.
Prize-winning research by Dr David Turner at Swansea University has enriched public understanding of the history of disability. He has empowered disabled people by showing that they have a history and demonstrated the contemporary relevance of that history in showing that developments considered recent, such as the formation of disabled identities and public fears about the authenticity of disabled welfare claimants, are nothing new. Impact is achieved via the creation of a major cultural product, a BBC Radio 4 series `Disability: A New History' which reached a wide audience, and through targeted engagement with media, policymakers and campaigners on disability benefit reform.
The impact of the research programme led to advice being provided to inward-investment companies on labour supply; to the re-working of the Northern Ireland Department of Employment and Learning's [DEL] training provision; to participation on the government's Task Force charged with re-integrating the unemployed into the labour force and to formulating the Northern Ireland [NI] response to the UK-wide welfare reform agenda. The research covered company recruitment experiences, spatial behaviour and perceptions of young people and benefit claimants, and the views of Job Centre advisors. It found that targeting jobs to deprived areas did not necessarily bring jobs to residents of these areas, that recruitment experiences were dependent on locational context, that some people are in a low mobility trap, and that advisors sometimes find it difficult to assimilate rapidly changing policies.