OK I think we should
make a start. So as I said good
afternoon everyone and we're
really excited to see so many
people join today and we are
really excited about celebrating
this International Day of
Persons with Disabilities
Conference today and also to
celebrate Disability History
month with you. My name is
Fozya Asad I am disability
advisor in the Student Support
and Wellbeing Team. A brief
description of myself I am
female with light brown skin and
long dark brown hair. I'm
wearing a dress with flowers
today, it is yellow and orange
flowers, my attempt to try to
match the visual on the screen
of a hand with a yellow flower.
Okay so this event is fully
accessible and we have 2 BSL
interpreters Andrea and John,
and our speech-to-text reporter
is Hilary. This event is being
captioned and to access the live
captioning you can click on the
link provided in the chat which
will then open up in a new
window and you can customise
according to your preference of
background and font size and
style.
Okay so some virtual
housekeeping. This webinar will
be recorded and we do have over
130 people signed up so some are
still joining and others have
sent their apologies, but have
registered to receive the
recording afterwards. Everyone
who has attended will of course
also receive a link to the
web-site to access the
recording.
So the chat function is
unavailable, but if you do have
any questions please do post
them in the Q and A function
that you can find at the bottom
of your screen and the
presenters and hosts will be
able to directly respond to
them. And also where possible,
there will also be an
opportunity to ask questions
after each presentation, so if
you post your question in the Q
and A the presenters will be
able to then answer.
Throughout the webinar we will
have 2 short 5 minute screen
breaks.
The presentations from our
colleagues today will showcase
some of the amazing projects
that they have been working on
and we hope that you will enjoy
this work and take away some
interesting learning from this.
But before we begin, I would
like to extend my personal
thanks to our team members who
have worked incredibly hard and
shown commitment and dedication
to make this event possible so
we can all celebrate this
success together.
Firstly thank you to all the
speakers for their time and
willingness to share their great
work and knowledge. Thank you
to our BSL interpreters Andrea
and John, and our speech-to-text
reporter Hilary. Your work and
efforts make a significant
impact. Thank you to Emma
Hughes and the development
communications and projects team
and Seema Walker for all your
hard work although you're in the
background your dedication and
commitment has not gone
unnoticed. A big shout out to
Teresa and Diana and educational
media team for taking care of
all the technical stuff and also
your expertise. Thank you to
Denise Long director of student
support and well-being for the
trust you have in us and last
but not least a huge thank you
to our management team including
Chilima Sianyeuka for her
continued support and a huge
thank you to Louise Grimmett for
her ideas support guidance and
expertise and we wish you all
the best whilst on parental
leave.
So we are now going to run our
first poll which you will be
seeing on your screens shortly.
So our question to you, we want
to find out what your main
reason for attending today is.
Can we have the results
please?
The results have come in and
it does show 31 per cent are
here to learn. 2 per cent are
here to reflect. And 19 per
cent are here to - interested in
the topic discussed today and
also to be inspired, 6 per cent,
and of course to celebrate the
International Day of Persons
with Disabilities 4 per cent and
as expected a higher percentage
38 per cent have said all of the
above because all of this means
a lot and matters to everyone.
Okay so before I introduce our
first speaker, we would like to
take this opportunity to stop
light some of amazing work
Student Support and Wellbeing
have done over the past year.
So some of the key successes
include: reasonable adjustments
as likely with many other higher
education institutions, in the
last academic year 2022/20 thee
23 we saw an increase in
students reregistering for
reasonable adjustments with us
by 116 per cent, we're pleased
we've been pla to meet this
service demand and support more
students to access reasonable
adjustments at UCL. As of 26
November 2023, 10670 students
shared that they have a
disability or condition during
the enrolment stage at UCL. Of
this number, just over 55 per
cent of students have reasonable
adjustments and it is what we
call a SoRA, which is a summary
of reasonable adjustments. So
this means that we have actually
set up 5983 SoRAs. Going
forward and our Towards
Inclusivity Model written by
Louise Grimmett head of Student
Support and Wellbeing for
inclusion and disability and Ben
Watson head of digital
accessibility we're keen to
reduce the level of
administration required to
implement reasonable adjustments
and we want to continue to
promote inclusive baseline
teaching and learning approaches
that support all students.
My next point is on the ADHD
screenings which is attention
deficit hyperactivety disorder.
So something we were also really
excited about sharing with you
today is us being able to screen
for ADHD. Within student
support and well-being we
understand that the Equality Act
2010 does not necessarily
require evidence of a condition
or diagnosis but clear
presentation of a long-term
impact. As an institution with
a significant proportion of post
grad students often undertaking
a 1 year programme, timely
support without barriers of
obtaining evidence is essential.
But this is not to suggest that
evidence is not important and
our students should still be
registered with a local GP, but
if they're not, then we do tend
to support them in this and help
them with registering and also
we work quite closely with local
GPs and local organisations. So
in recognising that obtaining
evidence can take a long time,
we were able to utilise the
specialists within our team and
add an ADHD screening
questionnaire to our existing
specific learning differences
questionnaire referring those
with indicators of ADHD for
support and reasonable
adjustments.
I mentioned our local
organisations that we work quite
closely with and one of the
things that we always do tend to
do is we like to build working
partnerships with our local
support organisations that can
then go on to benefit our
students. So starting from
academic year 2022/20 thee we
23 we began working with the
Camden BEAMS team in providing
free mental health and
well-being support for students
aged between 18 and 25. Every
Thursday practitioners from
Camden BEAMS team would come
over to our Bloomsbury campus to
conduct well-being appointments.
As a result, in academic year
2022, 23, we booked in you total
of 136 Camden BEAMS
appointments. During these
appointments the practitioners
provided our students with
general well-being advice,
helping them cope with the
challenges faced in their
university life and much more.
So from the feedback we have
received from our students, the
service has proven to be
extremely helpful especially for
international students who
struggle to adjust to their life
in a new country. So going
forward we will continue to work
with the Camden BEAMS team in
supporting our students as this
has proven to be really
successful.
Okay. So I am now going to
introduce you to our first
speaker Ahmad Ismail who is the
Equity and Inclusion sabbatical
officer. Ahmad, over to you.
AHMAD: Hello thank you very
much for having me today. We
are very thank you for SSW for
having the Students' Union and
always working with us in
advancing lots of the work we do
and in getting the student voice
into some of the procedures. So
I am the Equity and Inclusion
sabbatical officer. So I will
give a presentation on what I do
in my role as Equity and
Inclusion officer and what our
Equity and Inclusion Unit does
and how we aim to work
intersectionly amongst some of
the work we do so as Equity and
Inclusion officer I look over
our liberation officers which I
will get to in a minute. They
run our networks and these are
the LGBTQ+ network, the trans
network and the disabled
students network, POC students
network and the women's network
so these are part-time officers
that are students and that are
elected that work alongside me
and alongside each other both in
terms of advocacy within the
union and UCL across as a whole
and within community building
and creating spaces for students
that feel part of these
communities or protected
characteristics so that they
feel like they have a space
within the union and within UCL.
So some of the things we are
doing for this year is the
recognition we give to these
officers and to these networks
so one of the very important
things that comes out of these
networks, like I said earlier,
is the community building aspect
and the sense of community that
these students offer other
students so one of the things
we're working on is revitalising
the celebratory events we do
across the year. We just had a
really successful black history
month. We're putting on some
events for disability history
month, and in February for LGBTQ
history month. One of the
things we're keen on is to make
sure we have specific set things
each year that we can do and we
have a programme of events that
we run every year so it doesn't
come as a last minute thing
because sometimes these
communities feel like they're
left behind with some of the
events and activities that are
put on. One of the things that
I'm taking on as the Equity and
Inclusion Officer is to get
these officers paid for their
work that they do. We are in a
cost of living crisis. This is
really important work that
sometimes takes an emotional
toll on these students because
it is part of your identity when
you are representing and
advocating for something that is
part of your identity, it can be
difficult and recognising that
can help, A, make these students
feel empowered in what they do
and feel like we appreciate the
work that they do and they do
have a safe space within the
union specifically in the
context of disability, the RGSU
which is the Russell groups
Students' Union last year ran a
cost of living survey and found
that the cost of travel and just
the cost of getting to
university for disabled students
is much higher and in terms of
some of the things we expect and
want these students to be able
to achieve it would be unfair to
not recognise and get some of
that into them. So like we said
networks and part-time officers
are really crucial to
establishing the link we as
sabbatical officers have with
what different communities of
students face and feel and one
of the things I'd like to point
to is last years report written
by our postgraduate research
officer Emma Francis on some of
the experiences and difficulties
postgraduate research students
face in accessing some of the
different types of support at
university and the report is a
very detailed written report and
highlight some of the different
problems, mainly how PhD
students are kind of - whether
they are staff or students, what
kind of support they can access
and having a very complex system
that they cannot navigate with.
This is something one of our
officers is taking up this year
and working with another student
I believe alongside SSW to make
sure these issues are fed back
and we do try to work on
addressing them.
One of the things we want to
work on in our programme of
events outside the networks is
inclusive arts, inclusive
sports. So I mention here
Project Active. This is
something that different - this
is something Team UCL and our
sports teams do, which is try to
expand the sports offered to
those who wouldn't typically do
sports and who wouldn't
typically have the access or the
ability to go to team practice
and be part of competitive
sports. It's a very low
commitment low-cost thing that
we have and that has been
successful for the past few
years so one of the things we're
trying to do with the student
life strategy that was signed
last year with UCL which
basically aims at expanding
everything and doubling it
across the board is having the
same thing mirrored with arts
programmes, we run a very, very
successful arts offer but one of
our set backs, I would say we
think the arts offer, is - it's
a good thing and a bad thing at
the same time because we do run
these very high calibre arts
events and performances all
across the Board, but that's not
what everyone wants to look for,
not everyone wants to perform on
a stage and be part of a big
showcase at the end of the year.
Some people just want to take
part in something, try painting,
try learning an instrument,
something that's very low
commitment that doesn't require
having a breadth of experience
before, something that anyone
really can pick up, so that's
something I'm looking forward to
working on this year.
One of the last things I am
working on in my capacity as
Equity and Inclusion Officer is
EDI across UCL and that is
beyond the Students' Union and
beyond some of the networks we
run. We see that UCL has a
breadth of EDI Committees,
groups, teams, that students are
AHMAD: So just getting these
different departments to share
good practice across the
different work that they do. So
one of the things I'm working on
currently is with the medical
school EDI Committee who are
really active in trying to get
their curriculum intertwined
with some of the work they do in
EDI and not have EDI as
something separate. So ...
AHMAD: Hello can you hear me?
FOZYA: Yes we can hear you now.
AHMAD: I'm going to turn off my
camera because my internet is a
bit all over the place. So
sorry about that. So as I was
saying the medical school is
putting forward programme of
different, of a conference in
March, where they focus on
different protected
characteristics within this
conference on EDI within
medicine, so getting that good
practice how these different EDI
teams are structured, how their
students are active and promote
intersectional work because
although we do have specific
protected characteristics that
each have their specific needs,
not everyone is ... either
LGBTQ or fit all categories and
we need to recognise that in
itself has its own need so
promoting intersectional working
that comes out of that we think
is very important institute of
neurology is also really good
example of EDI teams that really
work together. So the goal is
by the end of the year is to
have some of those different
structures mirrored across the
less develop EDI teams within
other different departments and
focusing on strengthening the
EDI at departmental level
because as good and amazing as
the networks we have are,
departments are really hubs
where students feel like they're
part of a community and giving
them the option to have the
smaller community within their
department where they feel
welcomed, where they feel like
they can advocate for some of
the issues they face and where
they feel like they can have a
space to community build we
think is very important. Thank
you very much.
FOZYA: Thank you Ahmad, that
was fantastic, and really
interesting, and apologies to
everyone just for that slight
issue with the internet but I'm
pretty sure you would have
picked up on everything Ahmad
wanted to speak to you about
today and we just wanted ask if
you have any questions do please
feel free to put them in the Q
and A and we can ask Ahmad to
answer some of your questions.
So I'm just going to check if
we've got any questions at the
moment.
Okay there are no questions at
the moment. Let's have a look.
So Ahmad we have a question. It
says, somebody has asked: you
mentioned about shared good
practice. Are you working with
other universities? A question
by Bennyta ,
AHMAD: To be honest in terms of
EDI currently we're not working
with other universities. That
isn't to say there shouldn't be
a provision for it, but within
what UCL has there is a lot to
unpack. So I think starting
there is a good place, but
definitely other universities
would have other good practice
we could learn from.
FOZYA: Thank you. So there
Ok Ahmad we have another
question. How are you sharing
best practices between
departments or faculties?
AHMAD: I just finished
identifying all the different
EDI teams and Sub-Committees on
the Department and faculty
level. One thing that has been
a conversation that is ongoing
within the Students' Union is
the provision for an EDI rep.
Still not a final name. Similar
to the way we do academic reps
at the Department and faculty
level is to have a similar
structure for EDI that fits
within the current structures
that each department has within
EDI Committees and the sub
Committees that fall underneath
but the same time have a
connection with other EDI reps
so as students they can share
what's happening across their
different departments without
relying on their departments
themselves to be communicating.
FOZYA: Wonderful. I hope that
answers your question?
Okay if we don't have any more
questions I think it is time for
us to have a screen break. We
will have a quick 5 minute
screen break h oh actually we
have a question then we'll go to
a break. Ahmad there is another
question for you. How are
faculties being held accountable
for developing EDI?
AHMAD: Well currently there are
a few ways. There is Athena
swan but that specifically
relates to gender equality. It
is not, or isn't to be fair that
much way in terms of holding
departments and faculties
accountable but what we aim to
do is to embed EDI rather than
have it as a secondary thing
that is seen as an add on which
usually some people see it as.
And hopefully with the current
restructuring that's happening
within the central EDI team and
the appointment of a ... for
Equity and Inclusion that we
hope to work closely with that's
better reflected in the
structure so that there is an
easier way for central EDI to be
aware of what's happening across
the departments and to have a
better feedback loop.
FOZYA: Thank you Ahmad, that's
great. If we don't have any
more questions, but thank you
very much for your time and
sharing this absolutely amazing
work you are doing Ahmad today
and we'll go on a short 5 minute
screen break. We will be back
around 2.36. So we'll see you
in 5 minutes. Thank you.
FOZYA: Okay everyone welcome
back and I hope you had a chance
to look away from the screen for
a few minutes. It is poll time
now. Again we have our second
poll we would like to ask you a
question on if you work in
higher education, which aspect
of disability interests you the
most? Is it disability
advocacy, disability
progression, disability support,
all of the above, or other?
Great. Ok so,
again as expected 67 per cent
actually find working in higher
education both for disability
advocacy, disability progression
and disability support, so 67
per cent have said all of the
above, there is 5 per cent who
have said for disability
advocacy, disability progression
is 2 per cent, and for
disability support it is 21
support and then there is also
other reasons as well why people
prefer to work in higher
education and the aspects that
interest them. Okay so let's
move on to the next part of our
talk day. Okay so we would like
to continue spot lighting the
great work within Student
Support and Wellbeing so I am
going to begin with the UCL and
Disability Rights UK project
which this year in collaboration
with Disability Rights UK
Student Support and Wellbeing
were successful in securing a
bid from the student success
team to deliver train the
trainer sessions. We codesigned
and codelivered the training
with Disability Rights UK and
with 18 UCL staff members
participating in our first
successful session. The session
provides key information
regarding reasonable adjustments
legal cases to observe and
essential trainer tips to be
successful when considering
reasonable adjustments so that
is for example problem solving
and analytical skills.
Moving onto the point on
Mental Health Charter, in
December 2022 U UCL was among
the first 5 universities to
receive the university Mental
Health Charter award which
recognises our commitment to
continuous improvement in mental
health and well-being, this a
scheme devised by universities
UK and the charity students
minds. It aims to encourage
universities to develop a whole
university approach to mental
health. Student Support and
Wellbeing and proud to have
played a key role in achieving
this award by leading on the
co-ordination of the submission
and the site visit as well as
having several representatives
across the focus groups. The
assessment team also highlighted
several areas of good practice
including our relationships
between our services and the
Students' Unions and the use of
multi-disciplinary reviews of
difficult student presentations.
Our work to improve access and
support for Chinese students was
also identified as excellent
practice.
Just some information on our
Personal Emergency Evacuation
Plans which is referred to as PE
PEEPS and review process so UCL
fire safety team in
collaboration with Student
Support and Wellbeing and
inclusive environments initiated
conversations to review and
enhance Personal Emergency
Evacuation Plans process. 2
comprehensive PEEPS sessions
were conducted drawing over 180
participants from various
departments and roles. The
interactive sessions included a
Q and A segment yielding
valuable feedback that informed
the ongoing review process.
Subsequently there has been a
notable increase in PEEPS
support request enabling the
team to support individuals by
finding solutions and
implementing reasonable
adjustments for the evacuation
needs. The initiative extended
to conducting multiple training
sessions with various
departments and the UCL security
team specifically focusing on
lifts. Additionally fire safety
building walks were carried out
in collaboration with
departments and facilities
management team. These
initiatives collectively aim to
refine and improve the
evacuation procedures across
UCL, fostering a safer and more
inclusive environment.
I am now going to introduce to
you our next speakers who are
from the eugenics legacy
education project our speakers
are Tor Wright and Helen
knoecker.
HELEN: Thank you Fozya my name
is Helen knoecker I am a white
middle-aged woman with short
brown hair and to day I'm
wearing glasses that are cat
shaped. I am the academic lead
for ELEP which stands for the
eugenics project at UCL which
means I'm responsible for
devising the programme of
activities with students at UCL.
I am going to hand over to
colleague Tor.
TOR: I am Tor Wright, Tor is
short for Victoria, I'm a white
woman in her forties from
London, brown hair wearing
glasses at always and quite a
yellow jumper on today and I
work wift Helen in ELEP team on
professional services side. I'm
the project manager and I
generally describe that role as
saying no to Helen for the
exciting projects we want to do
because we don't have enough
money but basically keeping the
project running and on target,
I'll pass back to Helen briefly
thank you. You have muted
yourself Helen.
HELEN: Sorry. Next slide
please. In this presentation,
we very briefly want to talk to
you about our project. We're
involved in a lot of activities
related to the relationship
between UCL's historic links to
eugenicss and current and future
educational provision so we're
going to talk a little about the
project and we're going to talk
about 2 examples of work that
we've been doing over the last
few months just to give you a
flavour of some of the
activities that we're doing in
relation to disability and
disability advocacy. We're also
going to talk about a concept
called reparative practices and
this is because we think as a
project that our education
provision at UCL has a vital
role to play in showing that we
are confronting and addressing
the legacy of eugenics at UCL.
We really want to encourage
everybody on the call to be part
of this conversation so of
course if you want to know more
about our work please do contact
us afterwards and we'll be
really happy to hear from you.
Thank you.
TOR: If we could have next
slide please so a quick thing
there is no reason you should
know what the word eugenics
means unless you are
particularly involved in that
field but it's a horrible area
that we kind of get a bit blase
talking about sometimes because
we're in it day in day out and
sometimes we forget to think
about the harm that these
theories cause but basically
eugenics was a term invented by
Sir Francis Galton in 1883 and
it kind of means good in birth,
if you know about genes, it's
good genes, good breeding those
kind of terms and it's kind of
from animal breeding that put
this one together you will get
the better animal and in this
case we're the animals. Wees
These people should breed with
these people because we want
this better race whatever that
means, it makes you feel very
disturbed when you start to dig
into it. But he invented this
term and he actually didn't work
at UCL, which a lot of people
think he did, but he did give us
loads of money when he died and
his protege did work here
because he established a
professorship and a research
centre to study eugenics and
Carl Pearson was the head of
that for many years and together
they really developed eugenics
as an academic discipline.
People had these thoughts and
beliefs, ancient Greek you hear
talk about who should or
shouldn't be allowed to live,
but they turned it into an
academic discipline and cu l was
and UCL was the hub of that, we
had a department of eugenics for
a long time and gradually that
department changed and moved
into being, got the statistics
departments, genetics but its
basis was very much in eugenics
in those days. And it's only
really with students kind of
saying, um, what's going on
here? Why are we still
celebrating these men? Only a
couple of years ago we still had
a Pearson building the Galton
lecture theatre, my friend used
to work in the Galton Laboratory
in 2010. These aren't
historical things that happened
in the Victorian era and didn't
have any lasting legacy we still
have it here today so student
citizenship and we have quite a
rude word on the picture on the
slide saying fuck eugenics and
another saying UCL must answer
and there is a great video of a
student saying why is he having
to learn about this history
independently, why isn't it
being taught about at UCL why
isn't UCL thinking about this?
And this led to a quite in depth
enquiry in 2018 which led to an
apology from our previous
provost for our role in the
development of eugenics and as
part of that if we go to the
next slide please one of the
outcomes of the project good
news for me and Helen was the
formation of the Eugenics Legacy
Education Project. So this was
one of the outcomes that they
gave funding to along with some
other projects, some roles,
something called prejudice and
power, a few pieces going on
that a few people brought in but
our side is the Eugenics Legacy
Education Project really set up
to think about the educational
side of all this. You know
morally obviously eugenics was
so wrong and that our
involvement in it we need to
apologise we should say sorry
but what's it doing to our
education, what can we do
educationally to think about
this more and so we've got more
main aims in ELEP and part of
that is bem did visibility of
our legacy, we don't want to
hide this, we need to bring this
into current thinking, how did
we end up with these ideologies,
how can we make sure we don't
have modern versions of those
going on under our nose without
us realising? So our project is
a 3 year project, we're working
in UCL's arena centre which is
the centre for research based
education so a lot of our work
is to do with staff development,
staff training but also working
with students. We want to make
the legacy visible. We also
want to think about those bigger
critical thinking ideas and
making sure it doesn't happen
again. How do we talk about
other difficult topics without
being offensive but without
being scared to look into them
and be challenging and have that
academic integrity? But we also
want to really stress that we
want to work with people who
maybe affected by eugenics
ideology. So people living with
disabilities, people from
minority groups, basically
everybody who is not a white man
from Eton almost fits who
eugenicists didn't think were
amazing so lots of people we
want to work with and here are
these ideas I'm going to come
back to at the end we want to
speak to you and hear from you
and hear your ideas of what UCL
could do to make it the best
most disruptive thinking
university that we can be. I'll
pass back to Helen to look at
some work we've been doing.
Thank you. That will be on the
next slide.
HELEN: Thank you Tor. So as
Tor has mentioned our project is
looking at this very interesting
relationship between the past,
the present and the future. And
eugenics although is understood
historically as Tor also
mentioned, eugenics hasn't gone
away. It's developed into new
forms and we might talk about it
differently but it's definitely
there. And we can certainly see
it in some of the new exciting
ideas about education, for
example in discussions round
artificial intelligence.
Eugenicists spent a lot of time
thinking about intelligence so
it's inevitable that newgenics
as it is often called will
appear in those discussions. On
the slide is a picture of a
Quincunx it's an object that we
hold in our learning lab i have
put it on the slide, it is a
picture, it looks like a bottle
with a funnel in the top and if
you look inside there are some
small pins pinned in a triangle
shape and Francis Galton
invented this object to
demonstrate the concept of
normal distribution and I have
included it today because the
idea of the "norm" that there is
a norm is a very significant
idea that has had some
catastrophic consequences for
the field that it work in around
inclusive education. So we see
this concept of the norm rit
large in higher education still
when we think about ableism so
the idea that disabled students
experiences continue to be
invisibilised because we're not
within the normal distribution
of what normal students want or
require. It also perpetrates
the idea that adjustments and
modifications are not viewed as
educationally important because
they're add ons and not seen as
part of a continuum of inclusive
strategies and tools that all
students need to succeed. And
this normal distribution, it
looks like a curve, the bell
curve that you might recognise.
It means that we still work with
ideas of integration rather than
inclusion. So come into an
educational space and your goal
is to grow to be the same as
those within the norm. So we do
quite a bit of educational work
in that object based learning
lab and some of what we've been
doing over the last term with
students and colleagues is
thinking about how we can use
these objects in the collection
to continue to talk about
ableism in higher education and
to help everybody at UCL
understand the way that eugenics
ideas and ideologies continue to
influence the way that we plan
education.
So the next slide please. So
our first case study is thinking
about disabled students and
object based learning and in
this picture it's a box of glass
eyes and this object was
developed to help measure eye
colour and in the collection,
because of the connection
between genetics and eye colour,
eugenicists were very interested
in what eye colour might be able
to tell us about our ability or
our breeding. And it's a
reminder of the ways that
eugenicists used spurious
measuring techniques to make
statements and make decisions
about human potential. So in
this example, deaf students, in
the deaf summer school that was
co-ordinated by mandela Patrick
and (name) experienced an object
based learning lesson and were
encouraged to have critical
debates and reflect on ways they
continue to encounter eugenic
and ableist ideas now in their
own experience and have
discussions about the ways
scientific ideas, because they
sound scientific, can place
limits on the lives of disabled
people and because we want to
continue students at UCL to have
critical debates about this
science of human betterment.
And it is a very controversial
but interesting area of academic
activity. So we want to
continue to make the link
between the teaching that
happens inside UCL and link it
to this eugenics legacy where
appropriate.
Next slide please. So the
next piece of work that we've
been doing is we've been doing a
project with UCL special
collections team, and the
picture on this slide, it's just
an example. It's a screen shot
of a child who has been measured
by the eugenicists in the first
part of the twentieth-century
and these tools and forms were
devised by people at UCL and
some of the words on this chart
are very able, capable,
intelligent, but there is also
dull, very dull, mentally
defective. So at UCL we have
many examples of the ways that
people were measured, labelled,
categorised, organised, ranked,
and so we have put together a
resource where we're asking UCL
students to engage with these
materials because we want to be
able to illustrate the ways that
lives are monitored recorded,
documented, often for reasons
that don't again link at all to
any kind of ability or
potential. We want to highlight
the ways that eugenicists took
measurements that were not
educationally relevant and
encourage people to be thinking
how are there ways that we still
do that today? But we also want
to recognise power and agency
and think about issues of
stereotyping that start in
childhood for many disabled
people and continue. It's a
lifelong experience to be
recorded and documented. And we
want to try and offer this
resource to as many teams and
teaching areas across UCL so
that if they're thinking about
the ways that people are ranked
and measured, then we have got
some really good examples that
we can share. Thank you.
Next slide. So finally from
me I want to unpack what
reparative education might mean.
So you may well have heard of
this concept of reparations
specially in relation to other
areas such as transatlantic
slavery, and when I use the word
reparation here I'm not talking
about material reparation or
monetary reparation. Our
project is trying to take
seriously the idea that through
our education practices with
care and with careful well
structured teaching of the
eugenics legacy we can
demonstrate that we are
confronting and addressing this
legacy as an institution. This
is a project that will not
happen in just 3 years. What we
hope is that from this point on
we're building an anti eugenics
narrative. So what that means
is that educators will prepare
and anticipate student
experience, that they will be
able to develop their range of
teaching approaches and not rely
on that norm, that one size fits
all model. We're trying to
encourage colleagues at UCL to
have clear signposting so that
they're skilfully using the
virtual learning environment
Moodle so that students are
given information in good time.
We're also trying to challenge
our colleagues to think about
this notion of the ideal student
and we'd think the eugenics
legacy at UCL offers a really
quite important opportunity to
link what happened in our past
and show the way it is improving
our future offer for students.
And through our work and through
the training that we're
developing for UCL academics, we
are trying to challenge and
stretch them. And we're also
trying to encourage them to work
collaboratively with students to
ask questions about: what does
it mean to work at UCL knowing
that we have this legacy and
knowing that we're trying to
create diverse learning
environments? So in that sense,
we hope that ELEP is a
generative collaborative project
that will allow us to ask
important reflective questions
about our responsibility as an
institution going forward. And
I'll hand over to Tor for the
last slide.
TOR: Thanks Helen. So again
talking about collaboration, as
we said before we want to work
with as rich a group of people
at UCL as we can, staff and
students and members of the
community, and one way we can
work together is using
changemakers and I'll put a link
in the chat to the ELEP web page
an that's a staff student
collaboration funded route that
exists within arena so it's for
staff and students to work on
relatively small but getting
bigger because the money has
improved this year so projects
to enhance learning experience
and what does that men? Often
it means looking at the
curriculum but I was thinking
you know my learning experience
could be enhanced by the lift
working in the blinking cru si
form building which is the bane
of my life for many years. It
could be a day in the life of a
student who you know is the
first of their family to go to
university, you know,
eugenicists wouldn't like those
people being at UCL. All the
people eugenicists wouldn't like
we want to work with them, we
want to see their view of what
what UCL should be projects
that can work us and other A
academics and if academics have
ideas to work with students, we
would love a good chunk of
projects within changemakers in
the next couple of years and
there are 2 deadlines a year for
changemaker and one is coming up
in January so again we'd love
people to apply or come and chat
to us about applying for
projects if you've had something
bu sbling you've always wanted
to make public at UCL about your
experience or something so
obviously that could be done
better, you know anything you
have an inkling that could
really improve life at UCL we
would love to hear from you.
The next column on the slide has
our QR code to join our network
and again if you're not a QR
code person like I'm not
generally you can always email
us and our email address is on
the screen as well. Just get in
contact if you would like to
hear about what we're doing.
Our network is a chance just to
hear about talks that we're
having that you might come along
to be an audience member ough
it's also a way to get involved
in projects, we have projects
where we meet student interns,
anything like that you can
become a part of our network
whether you are staff student
member of public we're happy we
want this to be as open public
as possible so we would love
people to come and join our
network and hear from us then it
gives us a chance to hear from
you as well and I'm always happy
to receive emails, our generic
email address is ... if you want
to hear from us or have concerns
or ideas we just really want to
hear. It's a really positive
chance for us all to work
together. Just a plea really.
That's the reason we came along,
it's a plea because we want to
work with you, if you're
interested in these areas we're
interested in working with you
so again thank you very much for
listening to us, I'll pop a
link to the changemakers in the
chat, contact us if you missed
something or didn't understand
what the eugenics area was,
happy to chat with anybody.
FOZYA: Thank you very much Tor
and Helen that was absolutely
amazing, very thought provoking
ideas and really a chance for
people to get engaged with the
wonder work that you are doing
and just a reminder that Tor has
put the link to the web-site in
the chat so if you can have a
note of that. Okay. So, shall
we go on to questions? We've
got a few minutes to ask any
questions so if Tor and Helen
you are happy to answer
question, I'll check to see if
we have any. Please do feel
free to put the questions in the
Q and A section at the bottom of
your screen.
OK we have a question from
Lucy Smith and Lucy's question
is: would I be right in thinking
that Asperger's worked in
eugenics, has any link between
found between UCL and this?
HELEN: I'm happy to take that
question. So, yes, Hans
Asperger has been categorised as
a eugenicist from hi sto Rhian's
historians of special education
and disability and that is
because - you would be quite
surprised at the number of
people who had eugenics ideas
and historically certainly at
the beginning of the
twentieth-century eugenics was
seen as a kind of - about
progression, it was a future
focused ideology, it was
improvement. And Hans Asperger
like many people around that
time associated disability with
suffering and that is one of the
key things that we are trying to
challenge in our project, that
the association that to not be
the norm whatever that is,
somehow is about suffering, is
an idea that has been
perpetrated and continues today.
It is likely that Hans
Aspergers association with UCL
would have been through the
journals that were set up by
Karl Pearson. So Karl Pearson
is a very important figure in
eugenics history, he's all a
very important person in
statistics. If any of you have
studied statistics like Galton,
who is often called the father
of statistics, Pearsons Fay miss
famous for the development of
the Pearson coefficient. You
can't do some maths and
statistics without these people.
So one of the problems is
people will often say oh these
were giants of science so we
must acknowledge their
achievements and kind of think
about the things they did that
actually perpetrated a lot of
harm. So I don't know enough
about Hans Asperger to give you
a hundred per cent answer. I'm
sure I could check it out but
Karl Pearson had many journals
at UCL and one was called bio
metrica an it might be Asperger
sent work to that journal but I
know that at the time many
research many experiments were
about trying to eradicate what
people considered to be human
flaws or human - the idea was
that we wanted a good stock of
humans, that fundamentally and
that we could somehow breed out
any flaws, what they thought
were flaws, what we would call
full human kind of spectrum of
human flourishing but yes it's
very interesting. If you do any
kind of research you begin to
become quite Tor will often say
once you start looking it's
everywhere, and people that you
didn't think would be associated
with eugenics are. I mean it's
quite shocking in many ways.
FOZYA: Thank you for that
Helen. We do have a couple of
questions. We've got another
from Lucy to ask: is the concept
of neurodivergence a good
counter to some eugenics ideas
of thinking?
HELEN: That's a great question.
Yes is the answer.
FOZYA: ... Thinking she said -
HELEN: Yes. So eugenicists had
a belief that there was - there
were kind of particular
characteristics that made humans
intelligent and successful, so
the famous story is Francis
Galton began thinking about
eugenics, he was the cousin of
Charles Darwin and had many
relatives who were famous
writers during the Victorian
period and he started to wonder
how come he had such an amazing
family he had all these
successful people and maybe it
was down to eugenics and
breeding and what he didn't do
was think about the privileges
his family had round education
and money and networking and
living conditions. So he kind
of he didn't explore that bit.
But as happens in many different
- and still happens - people
with particular privileges get
their voices heard. So the
concept of neurodivergence, yes,
is a brilliant kind of counter
to eugenics thinking because
eugenicists see difference often
as if not inferior, as I said
earlier, they'll see it as a
suffering, and the
neurodivergent model obviously
looks at alternatives and tries
to break this idea of the norm
as many of you know, so, yes,
that's a really good point,
thanks Lucy.
FOZYA: Thank you Helen. One
more question. Can you tell us
more about the changemakers
project particularly for
students that might not be
within your department but have
identified a link with eugenics
and their subject matter?
TOR: I can say something about
that in that there is not one
department at UCL that won't
have links with eugenics whether
it's a direct link that your
department started as a
department of eugenics or
institute of education which was
run by a hell of a lot of
eugenicists for quite a long
time and hosted conferences and
all sorts and a lot of the
educational theories have bases
in that, you know, ah like the
Slade, I bet there is art that
relates to eugenics and beauty,
what is beauty? It's about
physical perfection. Every
single department can and should
look at their links with
eugenics and changemakers
projects are non denominational,
you can be from every faculty
and department at UCL and apply
for changemakers, they like them
to come Froom lot of diverse
places, we often have more from
some departments than others so
it's great if you come left
field with something. Only
thing they ask for is a good
collaboration so it's not a
student only project that you
never speak to any academics
about it it's something that
collaborates, but the
collaboration can come after
you've suggested your project
and the collaboration can be
with the ELEP team itself.
Helen is the academic there in
that case, but the idea always
how do we get the word out
there, how do we make sure lots
of people here been hear about
this and whether it's just -
hearing that there is some
eugenics and that's all they
hear, but it's enough to plant
the seed for some people, or
whether it's about designing a
brand new module in your
department. Anywhere on that
spectrum is a welcome
changemaker project. So I think
we can't tell you more about the
projects because the projects
are designed by the students and
changemakers help you develop
them. They have sessions
on-line and in person about
developing your application.
They have a Moodle course with
that information on the
web-site. There is lot of
background support which can be
a bit overwhelming. So also you
can come to us personally and
just chat through ideas you have
and we can, like was it a square
peg in a round hole, we can
force it into a changemaker
project if we need to to make
sure the funding comes along but
we're always interested in
hearing about those links with
eugenics that again we may not
have thought of, the department
may never have thought of.
There is so much bubbling under
the surface that we haven't had
a chance to look at yet as a
university. Anything is better
than what we have I think
currently. We have some great
academics teaching about it,
some great student work but we
always want more. Thank you.
FOZYA: Fantastic. Thank you.
Okay thank you very much Tor and
Helen. We really appreciate
your time and everything that
you've shared with us today. So
what we're going to now do is go
on to another screen break.
We'll take another 5 minutes, so
it's 3.14 now so we can come
back at 3.19, I think that makes
5 minutes. So we'll see you in
5 minutes.
(Break)
FOZYA: Okay welcome back
everyone.
So you might be thinking we've
got another poll but no, we
don't have another poll but what
we will be doing is going
straight into our final segment
of the spot lighting for key
successes of the Student Support
and Wellbeing.
Okay so I am going to begin
with, you may already be aware
UCL has been named as university
of the year by the Sunday Times
for 2024. The announcement came
after a series of impressive
achievements where 10 of UCLs
subjects ranked in the top 10
globally. The development
campaigns and projects team in
Student Support and Wellbeing
also known as the DC P Team are
proud to share that one of the
reasons the Sunday Times voted
us university of the year is due
to the promotional work for all
of Student Support and Wellbeing
and also the campaigns. Student
Support and Wellbeing's DCP team
are delighted to receive this
recognition of the Sunday Times.
This feedback reflects their
focus on preventative well-being
support through a range of
events. DCPE vents and
activities serve as the first
port of call for students
seeking welfare support before
they need to be escalated to
reactionary and crisis support.
The team's mission is to give
all UCL students the self care
skills they need to overcome
challenges posed by each stage
of their university life.
Therefore DCP has curated each
campaign to support the 3 core
aspects of student welfare:
social bonding, skills for life
and well-being at university.
Each event strives to develop
one or more of these aspects.
The team has designed an ACC
strategy which is accommodation,
classroom, campus strategy to
implement their campaign.
Whilst DCP delivers in person
campus events, the student
residents advisors support
delivery of accommodation
activities in halls of residence
and then the student advisors
deliver classroom events in
collaboration with their
faculty. The aim of this
strategy is to expand the reach
of all Student Support and
Wellbeing events and activities
to reach as many student groups
as possible.
So moving on to the opening of
ECL East. In September 2023 we
saw the opening of UCL East
Marsh gate campus it was great
news for us as we've now been
able to mirror our. Bri student
Student Support and Wellbeing at
UCL east too. This now gives us
an opportunity to support our
students at UCL East and UCL
East students can also come and
speak with us face to face and
those that are living at UCL
East accommodation they have
someone to go to nearby rather
than having to travel over to
Bloomsbury site. Advisors and
other Student Support and
Wellbeing members are available
to conduct face to face
appointments and of course there
is always going to be the option
of remote appointments as well.
So now this takes me nicely on
to our next speaker Tigmanshu
Bhatnagar also know as TI GG Y,
who is from the Global
Disability Innovation and based
at UCL east. Over to you.
TIGMANSHU: Thank you very much.
Hello everybody. It is a
privilege to be speaking to you
today about some of the work
that we have been doing here at
the Global Disability Innovation
Hub and the sort of exciting
honour and also again privilege
to be housed at the UCL East
campus which has so many more
opportunities to do some very
impressive work that involves
community engagement,
participation as well as cutting
edge technology research. So
hello and afternoon once again.
I am Tigmanshu Bhatnagar.
Recently finished by PhD. For
people who know me they call me
TIGGYI am lecturer and
researcher at the Global
Disability Innovation which is a
UK funded centre within UCL and
leads on key project called 18,
2030, across many different
countries. So move to the next
slide and in this talk I will
touch upon the intersection
between innovation and
disability which is more or less
at the heart of what we're
trying to do and what I will try
to communicate is to some extent
answering how to identify
disability problems that
actually matter in our society
in contemporary times and in the
coming future, and how do we
move through them systematically
so we can design elegant
solutions for it as we can see a
lot of things are happening
around the world but not
necessarily reaching the people
who actually need it to the next
slide please. And before I dive
into it, the GDI Hub as we like
to call it is an academic
research and practice centre.
It's part of UCL computer
science. With the sole idea to
accelerate disability innovation
world-wide. It is now
operational and over 60
countries globally through more
than 70 partners that we'd work
with and has reached an
impressive 34 million people or
at least has touched the lives
of these many people in one way
or the other. It is also the
world's first WHO collaborating
centre on assistive technology
and all this has been over the
past 6 to 7 years, it was
founded by academic director
Prof. Kathleen Holloway, the
leader of the London legacy
development centre Victoria
Austen and inclusive designer of
the Olympic park Ian McKinnon
who are all in faculty in GDI
Hub so within the academic
research centre we do MSc
programme called disability
design and innovation where
we're training up every year
around 30 students in inclusive
design for the built environment
and product design and assistive
technology design but also
disability studies and advocacy.
Here is an image that you see
on the screen from our
disability innovation summit
that we recently hosted which
had a participation from around
the world. Where we celebrated
the idea of disability no
innovation, learned many
different ways in which we do
innovate new technologies and
services for people with
disabilities and shared many
different ideas to do so. The
next slide please. So
innovation and disability. It's
a very exciting areas to be in
and it's very interesting as
well but why is it important?
let's try to understand that.
The next slide. Well, first, it
is important so we are able to
create appropriate solutions.
Over 90 per cent of people with
disabilities world-wide still do
not have access to the
appropriate assistive
technologies that they need. As
you can see in an image
associated with this particular
point, there is us young girl, 7
to 8 years old who has been
provided with an adult
wheelchair which is over sized
for her so she can't really push
it herself making her quite
dependent. This young girl met
with an accident that led to a
spinal cord injury but it didn't
lead to appropriate wheelchair
for her that could allow her to
be independent and learn how to
live life with a wheelchair.
And there are over 90 per cent
of people still in this
environment not getting what
they need and by assistive
technology it's not just about
the product but it's also
important to understand that it
encompasses the services and the
prevailing assistance around
that specific product so people
are able to access those
devices, learn how to use them
and know where to go when these
devices break. And another
situation there is still massive
lack of affordable devices that
are essential. So here in this
particular image what you see is
a refreshble tactile display
with a screen on it. Refreshble
tactile displays are essential
to access Braille and sometimes
graphics as well but these
devices because of the intricate
mechanisms that are in there
cost anywhere between 2000 to
5,000 pounds making it really
unaffordable for many, many
people across the world. So
there is a serious technological
challenge to make these devices
more affordable by inventing new
thing, new mechanisms, new
solutions, new technologies
using new materials. And that
leads to another challenge where
there is a global lack of
designed artefacts that can
address the problems that people
with disabilities actually face
on a day to day basis. For
example only 2 weeks ago an MSc
students from our Masters who
used uses a power wheelchair her
wheelchair broke down in the UCL
East campus and the student as
well as us as instructors didn't
know actually what can be done
so it's her wheelchair breaking
down so in the middle of the
campus imagining she is fully
stuck on this wheelchair and
can't really move around so we
eventually had to figure out
wheelchair repair centres but
there were none who could fix
her wheelchair so she had to
rent a new one and it's all that
anxiety of not having the
freedom to go anywhere they'd
like to go which is a
significant problem we face here
in the UK as well so it's not
just about problems some of the
poorer countries face due to
their socio-economic factors
where people with disabilities
are further marginalised and
there are other sort of
challenges that the country
needs to address to first, but
it's also here in more richer
countries where we haven't
created the systems and
structures that reaches each and
every individual who has a need.
So this intersection in a way
solutions is very important to
create these appropriate sort of
things that are out there and
available to people. Next slide
please.
The second important thing to
understand this intersection is
so that we avoid indulging
ourselves in creating devices
that nobody actually needs often
referred to as disability
dongles and this term was coint
by disability studies and
innovation enthusiast Liz
Jackson which basically refers
to products and things that has
a very ableist attached to it,
sort of are designed the
mentality to address a challenge
and of course disability faces
on an every basis. For example
in one of the images on the
slide there is a powered
wheelchair that can climb on
stairs. It's a very interesting
technically exciting and a
complex problem which will
excite some of our engineers,
but the eventual solution what
we get out is very expensive and
has a limited use because an
elevator would be just as much
capable of addressing that
challenge as thousands of pounds
worth device. It is also to
avoid devices that most people
do not want. We need to think
about these solutions as
problems that people genuinely
face on an every day life. It's
not about this kind of like
science-fiction product that can
miraculously do things. Even if
it does whether or not a person
actually needs those things
should be the first question
that we ask whenever we are
addressing this sort of
innovation within the disability
space. And it's also to avoid
problems that could be easily
fixed by existing solutions.
So, for example, in this image
that you see there, ultrasonic
sensors attached to a person's
shoes detect any obstacle while
walking and then they'll vibrate
the feet to alert the person
about a specific obstacle. The
idea is to support people with
visual impairments and to help
them avoid the use of white
canes and do the same task as a
white cane does, but the amount
of training that this kind of
devices would require a person
to interpret and understand the
feedback that they're getting
from the vibrating shoe and
those kind of things really
makes it pro blematic product
that rather than solving a
problem actually increases the
problems.
So the next slide please. So
that is why it is very important
to understand how do we innovate
in the disability space? So
that we get the solutions that
people actually need and avoid
making solutions that people
don't need. So how do we make
it actually happen? And here I
share some of the projects we've
been working on to actually make
disability innovation work. So
to the next slide please.
The first key thing to make
innovation happen is intent. An
intent that brings all users
together, all stakeholders of
specific assistive technology in
one place to understand where
the gaps are and how we plug
those gaps through innovative
solutions and actually deliver
things that makes a genuine
impact on people's life. So in
the first example that I'm
showing on the slide here
talking about a project, I'll
talk about a project that we're
doing with the Asian development
bank and the trade and supply
chain finance programme that
they're leading so A DB is
showing leadership in developing
knowledge products for their ...
and banks they're supporting in
Asian countries so the banks
have the capacity to understand
inclusion to provide reasonable
adjustments for people with
disabilities like we are doing
so brilliantly in this
particular webinar. Thing are
accessible. There is sign
language interpreters there is
captioning. People are
providing visual descriptions
about the slides. I forgot to
provide my own visual
description that I'll come to at
the end but these kind of ideas
are not so common in some of the
Asian countries so far because
there is very little awareness
about these things. So being at
a position like ADB and the
sense of responsibility in
providing and taking the lead
from the front, consulting with
experts from around the world to
provide these banks with the
necessary knowledge so that
their services as well as their
working culture becomes more
accessible. Another way to
bring this together is just
making the community more
excited. So one of our
colleagues, also a lecturer at
GDI Hub he has incited the
enabling Fridays community in
Nepal. Now the community has
engineers, clinicians,
physiotherapists and this entire
group is trying to address
challenges of specific
individuals which the global
supply chains cannot do, for
example in this particular image
there are engineers, doctors and
social scientists who are
working together to address one
persons sort of lack of
assistive technology who is
suffering from a diabetic foot
and trying to develop a
prosthetic which does not exist
anywhere in the country. And
the third way we can do is
through participation so in one
of the projects led by Ian
McKinnon in the inclusive design
group is to bring together
government officials as well as
disability people's
organisations from 6 different
cities around the world who
analyse their own cities for
inclusive infrastructure that
they have and the kind of
measures they're taking to make
their own cities more inclusive.
These kind of interactions by
officials from different cities
helps people to learn more about
the ways in which we can
practically do things and share
those ideas amongst each other.
So they're 3 ways in which we
can actually put intent into
action.
The next slide please.
Another way to make disability
innovation happen is by
leveraging existing solutions,
existing tools and the local
resources that are available.
So in a project which is being
funded by Google and at scale
we're trying to explore how
mobile phones are used as in
assistive product by people who
are visually impaired and
hearing-impaired and deaf so in
this particular project 3
countries, Brazil, Kenya, India,
have been chosen and then in
each country around 300 people
have been provided by android
mobile phones so we give them
these mobile phones and train
them on specific apps already
there on the mobile phones that
can make things accessible for
people and train them how to use
these smart phones, train them
how to use these apps then
monitor their usage patterns for
the next 6 month's what we are
trying to understand is how the
training as well as the use of a
smart phone changes or impacts
their quality of life. There
has been a lot of debate going
on in this particular space that
mobile phone is a fantastic tool
to increase accessibility to
provide assistance and itself is
a very strong assistive
technology because it allows
access to the entire sort of
digital ecosystem so that is
what we're trying to leverage.
We could also leverage existing
ecosystem and strengthen them by
capacity building unlock local
supply chains that might be
missing at the moment and also
provide open innovation
ecosystem as well as use
artificial intelligence to
provide a platform so people can
share their problems statements
and address solutions.
Next slide and where solutions
do not exist need to invent new
things so here we can use a
combination of light and basic
research, for example in one of
the projects that we did we
combined practical problem
solving approaches but with
material science in order to
design a new form of a tactile
display that can address the
challenge of affordability and
scale ability but also solution
lies in core material science
and engineering research. So
that bridging those 2 worlds
together becomes very important
in inventing something new that
does not exist as a solution.
It can also in some of the
projects that we are doing we're
supporting start ups that have
invented a new way of solving
the existing problem and
providing them with bespoke
research support to address a
specific challenge that they're
facing in bringing their
solutions to the market. Now
this could be some sort of user
research or technical research
or any sort of capacity building
exercise that they would like to
request us to provide. So in
this way we can aid their growth
of ventures and provide them a
platform where they can see more
funding and have better
insight. Next slide please.
So what will all this lead to
if we are able to identify good
problems, work our may through
intent through participation and
by combining applied and basic
research approaches to solve
elegant solutions. For the next
slide.
We'll be able to impact
multiple sustainable development
goals. We could work towards
ending poverty because
disability and poverty are
closely related. A disabled
person is much likely to be poor
than if there is a person who
lives in poverty there is more
likelihood of acquiring
disability because of poor
living conditions so we can try
to break that vicious cycle by
bringing in innovations that
actually reaches people. We can
ensure that our own lives as we
age improves. So that we can
promote well-being at all ages.
We can ensure education which is
one of the most important
factors to break out of
marginalisation is provided to
everyone. We can promote more
inclusive employment
opportunities, bring solutions
to people and provide better
growth and decent work to
everyone and eventually reduce
the inequalities that we live
wit in our country but also
amongst countries so we make a
more liveable planet for
everyone.
So that is, I think, all that
I wanted to share with you
today. Just kind of like a very
high level introduction to
innovation and disability and
that intersection that we're
able to identifies problems and
solve them. Again I am TIGGY.
Visual description, Asian
origin, I wish I was 6 feet but
now I know why because of
eugenicss okay thanks very much
for this opportunity.
FOZYA: Thank you very much,
that was really good to hear
everything you talked about,
absolutely fantastic about the
innovation, the promotional work
and everything that you and the
digital innovation hub has been
working on, yes, the global
innovation hub has been working
sonry, need to check on that
sorry, global innovation hub,
everything you've been working
on absolutely amazing and we've
got a question that Sandra would
like to ask. Sandra has said:
what about hidden disabilities
such as sickle cell disease,
individuals may not display
signs of disability or use
wheelchairs but they are
classified as disabled.
TIGMANSHU: So if I did
understand the context for this
question a little bit Sandra?
FOZYA: Okay I think the context
would have been when you were
talking about the different
types of disabilities that you
work with like you were talking
about deaf people and people in
wheelchairs so Sandra is asking
about the hidden disabilities
such as sickle cell disease
which is a hidden disability.
Is there anything that, any work
that you are doing to support
someone that might need support
for that?
TIGMANSHU:
FOZYA: Or is it mainly physical
disabilities.
TIGMANSHU: We are open - I
think we work with people with
disabilities across all
disability categories, we don't
necessarily also
compartmentalise things like
that because when it comes down
to providing an inclusive - to
bring in concepts of inclusion
and inclusive infrastructure or
inclusive finance we need to
think about all these types of -
all people, everyone, which
includes sometimes hidden
disabilities. If it means in
terms of a specific project that
we haven't had officially worked
on a specific particular project
that includes people with hidden
disabilities but we have had
engagements with them through
our MSc programme, some MSc
students have worked with people
with neurodivergence with some
hidden disabilities as well that
are not necessarily the typical
forms of disabilities that we
see.
FOZYA: Thank you. So you are
open to working with students
with hidden disabilities.
TIGMANSHU: Absolutely.
FOZYA: I hope that answers your
question Sandra. Okay so we've
got another comment. It's less
of a question but more of a
celebration of some of the
fantastic information that this
person has found very useful and
incredibly interesting so that's
just a comment.
TIGMANSHU: Thank you, I'm very
glad it was useful and
interesting.
FOZYA: Any other questions?
thank you, we just have
sometime for questions so if you
do have any questions about,
with regards to any of the
speakers, any of the
presentations that you have seen
today, if you are, if you do
have any questions, feel free to
ask them using the Q and A
function. Even if you have any
comments you can also put them
in the Q and A function as well.
TIGMANSHU: Another question?
Do we have any PhD students in
the GDI hub? Yes definitely we
have many PhD students working
on diverse projects in GDI Hub
which involves data science to
predict what would be the unmet
need for wheelchairs in the UK
in the future, through more
practical projects where we're
developing new forms of tactile
displays which can provide
three-dimensional figures to
blind and partially sighted
people to help them understand
and visualise these concepts
better. So our academics lead,
3 academics who are basically
leading on many of the different
projects and they're more
associated academics through
work in this space so we have
many PhD students in the hub and
post doctorate researchers as
well.
FOZYA: Thank you.
Any more questions anybody? or
comments?
Okay we have another question.
Do the GDI sponsor PhD students
or their business partners?
TIGMANSHU: If the PhD student
is working on a project there is
possibility for funding to
support the PhD work, that would
be - that is possible, otherwise
PhD students could also bring
their funding or apply for
scholarships and depending upon
the project could be supported
in that way.
FOZYA: Thank you.
We have another question. It is
by Kate. Kate says I am an MSc
student at Hull. We have an
advisory group of people living
with dementia and their carers
families. Do you have similar
feeding into any of your
courses?
TIGMANSHU: Yes, Kate, we also
have an advisory group of people
with lived experience of
disabilities and call it the
experts bench, and these are
volunteers who engage with
students in the student
projects, and as again they're
not specific - all people do not
have a specific disability,
they're across different
disabilities and we're working
closely with them depending on
the kind of student project. So
there are people with visual
impairments, people who use
wheelchairs, people who are
neurodiverse and people who live
with motor neuro disease in this
advisory group.
FOZYA: Thank you.
Okay Sandra you've asked a
question to as whether the
recording will be available to
access after days event? Yes of
course the recording will be
available but it's not going to
be available straight away it
would be possibly available
maybe sometime next week, we
can't say for sure, but we will
definitely try our best to
provide you with a link that
will take you to the web-site to
where you can actually access
the recording. I've just been
told within 2 weeks probably.
Any more questions?
We've got some comments on
thank you and thank you for the
interesting session.
Okay so I think if we don't
have any more questions we can
start to wrap up and I would
like to take this opportunity to
really thank you so much for
your time and your engagement
and attending this webinar.
Again I would like to thank
everyone that's behind the scene
and also our speakers that have
been participating in this
session. We do hope that you've
enjoyed the session and that you
are able to take away some
information that was useful and
important to you in the work
that you do. We do ask that
your feedback is really
important to us so please do
make sure that you complete for
the back form that will be sent
to you. We do have a QR code on
the screen right now. So if you
would like to provide your
feedback using that QR code,
then please do so. Also I
believe maybe Eloise might be
sharing the link in the chat, so
if we can share the link to the
feedback form in the chat that
would be great too. Yes Eloise
thank you for that, we've just
shared the feedback form in the
chat. And also we will be also
emailing this out to everyone,
but like I said it is important
that your feedback to us is
important and we'll be really
grateful if you can complete
that.
So yes I think that is all for
today and I - again thank you
very much and I hope you enjoy
the rest of your Friday and have
a lovely weekend. Bye
everybody. Thank you very much.