DARE · Disability Advocacy Research in Europe

DARE will train a new generation of disability scholars and policy specialists. It sets out an ambitious research programme, providing interdisciplinary, intersectoral training which will equip the ESRs to have a real impact on law and policy reform and on the real lives of persons with disabilities. The goal of DARE is to give legitimacy, through research, to the lived experience of persons with disabilities, as a basis for law reform. This is not just a desirable policy goal - it is legally required by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which is binding in the EU alongside its Member States. DARE innovates intersectorally by bringing non-academic partners into the very heart of the research and training programme as co-supervisors of the ESRs. It innovates intersectionally by emphasising how various identities (such as gender and age) interact to create layers of discrimination against persons with disabilities. It innovates by training the ESRs in emancipatory and participatory research methods to ensure that the voices of persons with disabilities take centre stage in the research process. It will require the ESRs to adopt a lifecourse perspective in developing an evidence base for law and policy reform. Through a carefully tailored secondment strategy in the advocacy community, DARE will expose the ESRs to organisations outside academia and at the epicentre of reform. DARE will draw on a panel of international policy & disability experts to enable the ESRs to continually refine their research to ensure it has societal impact. DARE will make Europe a highly attractive educational space for research on the implementation of the UN Convention. It will give the ESRs a decisive advantage in seeking new employment roles in processes of reform at the international level, before Governments and in advocacy groups. Its graduates will be seen not merely as traditional ‘knowledge providers’ but also as ‘policy entrepreneurs.’