Simon Holt, Erin Osborne-Martin, Miguel Ramon, Matthew Salter, Karen Stoll Farrell | December 12, 2022
The authors would like to thank those who contributed ideas to this piece, including: Lisa Braverman, Sylvia Hunter, Dan Shanahan and Jennifer Erica Sweda.
December 3 marks the UN’s annual International Day of People with Disabilities. Over 1 billion people worldwide, or 15% of the world’s working-age population, have a disability. Around 80% of disabilities are ‘hidden’, meaning that it’s highly likely that you live and work with many people with disabilities, without being aware of it. More broadly, it means that as organizations and as an industry, if we are serious about diversity and equity, we need to proactively take steps to become more disability inclusive.
There is, of course, a big difference between recognizing that something needs to be done, and knowing how to go about doing it. To this end, a group of volunteers (volunteer with us) is currently partnering with C4DISC to build aToolkit for Disability Equity in the Scholarly Communications Industry, following on from the excellent antiracism and inclusive language toolkits already published. We hope to launch the first version of this toolkit in 2023.
One of the main things we have learned during the development of the toolkit is that many of the activities that make the most impactful difference are small-scale and low-cost, involve behaviors rather than huge infrastructure shifts, and are changes that organizations of any size can implement. We also recognize that inclusion is a journey, and everybody needs to start somewhere. In this article, we present 10 quick wins to help make your organization more disability inclusive.