Published on 08 Jan 2026

Disability Matters: Building Inclusive Health Research Environments in Universities

Wellcome 5/23 WME - Disability Matters Phase 4: Disability and health research environments

Project Team

Singapore Co-PI: Associate Professor Wong Meng Ee

Singapore Research Assistant: Kerri Heng

United Kingdom PI: Professor Daniel Goodley, University of Sheffield

United Kingdom Programme Manager: Rhea Halsey, University of Sheffield

United Kingdom Research Associates: Dr Ankita Mishra and Dr Christina Lee, University of Sheffield

Canada Co-PI: Professor Tanya Titchkosky, University of Toronto

Canada Research Officer: Dr Elaine Cagulada, University of Toronto

Australia Co-PI: Professor Jackie Leach Scully, University of New South Wales

Australia Research Associate: Dr Jodi Lamanna, University of New South Wales

India: Sandeep Singh, Ambedkar University

Project Description

This Singapore project is part of the six-year five-country study, Disability Matters. Comprising the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, and Singapore, the Disability Matters study is funded by the Wellcome Trust and aims to transform health research and environments through disability as the driving subject of inquiry.

The Singapore phase of the study (Environments) interrogates the university as a key environment in which disability and health research takes place. The following research question will be answered: How does the presence of disability enable more inclusive health research environments?

Accordingly, the Singapore research team is working on three desktop research papers: 1) An investigation of how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are reflected across Singapore’s six autonomous university websites, 2) An investigation of the presence/absence of diversity statements across job advertisements put out by Singapore’s six autonomous universities, and 3) a critical literature review of Singapore’s disability and health research landscape.

The Singapore research team is also planning to conduct 300 in-depth interviews across the five countries (aiming to start in March 2026). Two categories of people pertinent to the university environment will be interviewed: Academic and non-academic staff of Singapore’s universities, and researchers with disabilities.