DISABLED lecturers and researchers are facing restricted opportunities for promotion in UK universities, an academic has warned.
Dr Kate Sang, associate professor in management at Heriot-Watt University, in Edinburgh, said current barriers included a culture of long hours unsuitable for some disabled staff.
She also said institutions lacked understanding of how difficult it could be for disabled academics to travel to international conferences and said there was a shortage of suitable mentors and support staff.
Dr Sang has now received a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to record the experiences of disabled academics across the UK.
Her research will be used to produce a guide for Heriot-Watt’s Equality and Diversity Advisory Group, which Dr Sang hopes will then be rolled out across universities and funding organisations across the UK.
She said: "We’ve identified some of the career barriers women and ethnic minority academics face in the workplace, such as lack of access to networks and mentors, and a working hours culture that prohibits full participation in academic life, but we simply haven’t yet identified the career barriers for disabled academics.
“Universities have rigorous practices and policies for identifying and supporting disabled students, but this isn’t the case for academics. It’s a patchy framework that relies on the academics pushing human resources and occupational health staff for support.
“I am focused on finding out what universities and funding organisations can do to improve the experience of disabled academics, whether it’s building in British Sign Language interpreters or support workers to providing more grants or adjusting timescales and working hours.”
Mary Senior, Scotland Official for the UCU lecturers' union, welcomed the research and called for all institutions to take note of its findings.
She said: “It is over 20 years since the Disability Discrimination Act, but there is still persistent and embedded discrimination against disabled people.
"We are seeing some positive progress in university workplaces, but our members are still saying there is an inequity in the treatment of disabled staff compared to students and learners, and working practices that can discriminate against disabled staff.
"We all need to do more to ensure employers recognise the benefits of recruiting disabled people. Disabled staff are a source of valued talent that should not be ignored."
Vonnie Sandlan, president of student body NUS Scotland, added: "If we want to create an education system which reflects wider society and is truly accessible for disabled students and academics, we need to overcome the unnecessary additional barriers that exist.
"Disabled students and staff should be free to choose where they study and work based on the same factors as everybody else, rather than where they can expect to have their needs best met.
"Support must be consistent across all institutions, between different faculties and courses, and available to everyone with a disability. It should not be a one size fits all service, but tailored to the needs of the individual."
A spokeswoman for Universities Scotland said the sector took equalities issues very seriously, including that of disability.
She added: "Dr Sang is researching the experiences of disabled academics in engineering, physical sciences, social sciences and humanities and we look forward to the publication of this research so it can be used to help us work with disabled staff and students to create inclusive universities."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here