Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2026-2029

DIAP 2026-2029

Introduction

Commitments

This Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) is both the University’s commitment to being an accessible and inclusive place and an outline of what we will do to achieve this in the next three years. We recognise that access and inclusion must underpin all strategic development, programs and initiatives. Achieving this will mean that everyone - including students, graduate researchers, staff and visitors with disability – can feel welcome and thrive.

We commit to having disability inclusion as a standing expectation. All teaching, learning support and research; leadership decisions; and systems and measures of success must reflect this expectation. This will support a diverse, resilient and successful University community. Lived experience expertise is central to this undertaking, and we have taken steps to embed lived experience voices in what we do to achieve it.

This is the University’s second comprehensive DIAP. It is one of a suite of six targeted action plans¹ that support the implementation of the University’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2030. Together, they drive an intersectional approach² to achieving “a thriving, fair and diverse University community”. The DIAP is a critical enabler of the University’s Strategy 2030 goals to empower people and performance, improve student experience, partner for impact, and lead with a future focus.

Context

The University of Melbourne has legislated responsibilities to support access and inclusion under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), the Disability Standards for Education 2005, and the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic). In meeting these obligations, we subscribe to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006, Preamble E) definition of disability:

…disability is an evolving concept and disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers³ that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

This definition is often described as being based on the ‘social model'⁴. Instead of seeing disability as a medical problem, the social model shifts responsibility to governments, institutions (like the University), businesses and communities. They have a responsibility to remove barriers that exist in society and to promote equal participation. The Convention notes that disability rights are human rights and thus calls us to action.

We aspire to best practice in accessibility and inclusion to ensure “full and effective participation” of students and staff and with disability “on an equal basis with others”. This DIAP brings together actions that support us to meet legislated responsibilities, and exceed them, informed by the human rights lens of the Convention. It does so by improving supports for students, staff, graduate researchers and visitors with disability and by embedding accessibility in everything we do. This is not just the right thing to do: we all benefit.

First Nations perspectives

First Nations understandings of disability are shaped by cultural perspectives. Disability is seen as a part of ‘the normal range of human diversity’ (Daniels-Mayes, 2023, p. 3) and the response to this diversity is typically holistic and situated within a community approach. As a result, ‘conventional constructions of disability – as a barrier to individual capacity and participation in society’ (Daniels-Mayes, 2023, p. 3) may not resonate with First Nations people. The University recognises the importance of cultural safety to Indigenous staff and students and, through our Murmuk Djerring strategy, aspires to excellence in Indigenous higher education and research. This includes prioritising listening, trust, and relational accountability. Over the life of the DIAP 2026-29, we will look to build practices that honour Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing into the way we go about implementing DIAP actions and to shape up an intersectional program of work.

Terminology

Disability describes a broad set of experiences, including experiences of physical, sensory or cognitive disability, and chronic health conditions, mental illness, and neurodivergence⁵. There are many ways to talk about disability, and preferences differ.

This plan uses person-first language (‘people with disability’) in line with Government language guides and general convention. We recognise that some disability communities prefer identity-first language. The plan also recognises the overlapping and distinct needs of unpaid carers of people with disability and refers to them as ‘people with caring responsibilities’. Where not specified, people with caring responsibilities are included within the scope of broader actions.

Next page: A snapshot of disability inclusion at the University

Footnotes

¹The other Diversity & Inclusion action plans at the University are the Athena Swan Action Plan, Respect Action Plan, Gender Equality Action Plan, LGBTIQA+ Inclusion Action Plan and the Anti-Racism Action Plan

² Intersectional approach: an approach that recognises that people can experience multiple forms of disadvantage and inequity, which together shape their experiences and outcomes.

³ Barriers: factors that make access or participation difficult or impossible. These can be physical (e.g. a heavy, manual door), digital (e.g. videos without captions), policy or procedural (e.g. requiring medical evidence when not necessary), or attitudinal (e.g. seeing adjustments as an unfair advantage).

⁴ Social model of disability: a framework that sees disability as the result of barriers, rather than stemming from a person’s impairment.

⁵ Neurodivergence: an umbrella term that includes people whose brains function differently to the dominant societal norms and expectations. Neurodivergence includes but is not limited to Autism, ADHD, learning differences, acquired brain injury, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, anxiety.

References

Daniels-Mayes, S. (2023). Research Indigenous people living with a disability: The urgent need for an intersectional and decolonising approach (BlakAbility). First Nations Health and Wellbeing – the Lowitja Journal, 1(3).

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, December 13, 2006, https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/crpd/pages/conventionrightspersonswithdisabilities.aspx

A snapshot of disability inclusion

The Neurodiversity Project

Supporting the University's neurodivergent community

Identifying the gap in supports for neurodivergent staff and students, the Neurodiversity Project have delivered over 87 professional development workshops, piloted curriculum co-design initiatives, designed a new neurodiversity-focused breadth subject, hosted the Celebrating Neurodiversity Research Symposium, and undertaken the largest neurodiversity needs analyses of staff and students at a single Australian university. Led by neurodivergent staff, the Neurodiversity Project has had impact across classrooms, policy and strategy, and research.

BlakAbility Project

Improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability

Led by lived experience and funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), BlakAbility’s research aims to identify better ways to support the success of Indigenous staff and students with disability. In investigating their lived experiences, the BlakAbility Project explores the intersection between disability and indigeneity, and incorporates Indigenous knowledge and practice of disability.

Student Equity and Disability Service (SEDS) review

Refreshing academic support for students with disability

An action in the previous Disability Inclusion Action Plan committed the University to reviewing its Student Equity and Disability Service. The review, completed in 2024, outlined over 70 recommendations. Plans quickly progressed for the implementation of the recommendations. So far, SEDS have renewed their website and student-facing information, refreshed their staff-facing information, increased their presence at student orientation, and reviewed their application processes. Work is ongoing, with next steps included in this plan.

Next page: The importance of lived experience

The importance of lived experience

The voices of people with lived experience of disability must be centred in all initiatives to support disability inclusion. Guided by the principle, “Nothing about us without us,” the University has begun, and continues, to embed lived experience representation and consultation in the development and implementation of strategy and projects. The establishment of lived experience advisory groups was a key achievement under the DIAP 2023-2026:

The Staff Disability Roundtable has been integral to the evaluation of the previous DIAP and the consultation on this DIAP. The Roundtable provides a lived experience voice to University executive on accessibility and inclusion and serves as a community for staff with disability at the University
The Student Disability Projects Panel provides paid opportunities for students with disability to support the DIAP and other strategic initiatives related to accessibility and inclusion. Panel members consulted on the development of this plan.

Student Panel members were asked to reflect on their experience participating in the Student Disability Project Panel. They provided the following statement:

We are a diverse group of students with lived experience of disability, chronic and mental health conditions, and neurodivergence. Each of us is shaped by our different backgrounds and intersections of identity. Our experiences give us firsthand knowledge of the barriers that impact learning, participation and wellbeing. They also inform our insights on what genuinely improves inclusion at the University and what enables us to thrive. Through the process of developing this plan, we valued the University’s openness to learning from our expertise. Our voices have helped to shape decisions that directly affect us, reflecting the principle of ‘nothing about us without us.’ As for all students, our experiences and our success at university will have immense impact on the rest of our lives. We deserve to continue to be heard, recognised as experts in our own experiences, and empowered to speak up openly and honestly.

Next page: Governance, reporting and implementation

Governance, reporting and implementation

The DIAP is overseen by University Executive via its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sub-committee.

The DIAP Reference Group, made up of action implementation leads, lived-experience representatives (Staff Disability Roundtable and student representatives) and subject matter experts, has guided the development of this action plan. It will remain in place to drive and monitor the implementation of the DIAP, supporting and coordinating action-specific implementation plans and targets. Implementation plans will continue to seek lived experience and subject-matter expertise from across the University over the lifecycle of this plan.

University groups that participate in DIAP governance, and how they interrelate with each other. Lived experience groups feed into the DIAP Reference Group, which feeds into the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sub-Committee and University Executive.

Each action has an executive lead who holds ultimate accountability for the action’s implementation and progress. Progress on the DIAP will be reported annually to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sub-committee via its action plan reporting cycle. Regular communication with the University community on the progress of the DIAP will be an implementation priority.

Next page: About this plan

About this plan

Data and evaluation

The DIAP 2026-2029 has been developed with consideration of evaluation data from the DIAP 2023-2026, including:

Annual reporting on progress against DIAP actions
Student and staff surveys (staff and student experience surveys and DIAP-specific surveys)
Internal stakeholder consultations (with staff with disability, DIAP action implementation leads, student representatives, faculty representatives, subject-matter experts)

The actions in the DIAP 2026-29 are grouped under five focus areas that capture the breadth of activities to be undertaken across the University. Each focus area has goals and a set of outcomes and measures related to the achievement of that goal. Where possible, we have included baseline data gathered from the evaluation of the DIAP 2023-2026. The measures identified in this plan highlight two key population groups: people with disability and people with caring responsibilities. Evaluation methods will break these groups down further to consider other intersectional inequities (e.g. gender, cultural background) that may further contextualise student and staff experiences. In the interests of maintaining consistency in evaluation, we have chosen to retain language from data sources in the measures included in this plan. This can be seen particularly in measures that reflect student and staff survey questions.

Targets

We can and should be proud of progress already made to achieving an accessible and inclusive University. There is still much room for improvement. Whether to include targets against specific actions in this DIAP has been a question over the course of the Plan’s development. On the one hand, targets hold us to account and help describe our aspirations. On the other, the ultimate use of targets depends on a mature framework for collecting and evaluating data. This is still evolving in step with, and supported by, actions in this DIAP. To proceed well, respectfully and ethically, we have therefore decided to include three overall targets to guide this work of the DIAP. Each has been designed to develop our data capacity, putting us in a stronger position for future monitoring and evaluation.

By 2029, 100% of senior leadership¹ have completed module one of the University’s Disability Awareness training
By 2029, 5% of the University of Melbourne workforce have reported a disability through workforce data systems²
By 2027, 40% of subjects are engaged with a University-wide program³ to encourage, develop and recognise best practice in approaches to inclusive teaching and learning, rising to 60% by 2029

Vision

The University of Melbourne is a place where accessibility and inclusion underpin our structures, practices and leadership, guided by the lived experience of people with disability.

Next page: Focus Area 1

Footnotes

¹This includes Heads of School or Heads of Department and above

²Currently, less than one per cent of University of Melbourne staff have self-reported a disability via Workday. In comparison and guiding the target selection, the Australian Public Service report 5.8% of their employees are people with disability (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2025). Progress towards this target will be supported by actions 1.2. and 1.3.

³ To be established under this plan (action 3.3)

References

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (December 2025). Public Sector Employment. https://www.aihw.gov.au/australias-disability-strategy/outcomes/employment-and-financial-security/public-sector-employment

Focus Area 1: Organisational culture and attitudes

Goal: The University is a safe, welcoming, supportive place for people with disability, and demonstrates a commitment to becoming a leader in disability inclusion and accessibility

Outcome 1.a: People with disability are included, free from discrimination and safe to share their disability information when they need to

Indicator 1:

Increase safety from discrimination

Measures:

Proportion of staff with disability or caring responsibilities who feel it is safe to speak up at the University
- Baseline: 36% of staff with disability (Staff Experience Pulse Survey 2024)
- Baseline: 50% of staff with caring responsibilities (Staff Experience Survey 2023)
Proportion of staff with disability or caring responsibilities who agree that the University provides a working environment free from discrimination and harassment
- Baseline: 48% of staff with disability (Staff Experience Pulse Survey 2024)
- Baseline: 60% of staff with caring responsibilities (Staff Experience Survey 2023)
Proportion of students with disability who agree that they are free from discrimination, harm or hatred at the University
- Baseline: 56.8% of students with disability (Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching Student Experience Survey [QILT-SES] 2024)

Indicator 2:

Improve experience of inclusion and belonging for staff and students with disability

Measures:

Proportion of staff with disability who see positive change in how the University provides an inclusive working experience for staff with disability
- Baseline: 21% of staff with disability (DIAP Staff Survey 2025)
Proportion of students with disability who report they have a sense of belonging to the University
- Baseline: 31.5% (QILT-SES 2024)

Indicator 3:

Increase staff knowledge and understanding of disability

Measure:

Proportion of staff who have completed Disability Awareness training
- Baseline: to be established in 2026 from TrainMe data

Indicator 4:

Increase lived experience representation at the University

Measures:

Proportion of staff with disability or caring responsibilities who feel their lived experience, perspectives, and values are represented in University activities
- Baseline: 49% of staff with disability (Staff Experience Pulse Survey 2024)
- Baseline: 60% of staff with caring responsibilities (Staff Experience Survey 2023)
Proportion of staff with disability in senior executive leadership roles
- Baseline: proportion not reported, less than ten responses (Staff Experience Survey 2023)
Proportion of staff at the University who are people with disability or caring responsibilities
- Baseline: 8% of staff have disability (Staff Experience Pulse Survey 2024)
- Baseline: 25% of staff have caring responsibilities (Staff Experience Survey 2023)
Proportion of students at the University with disability
- Baseline: 8.6% of students have disability (University of Melbourne student data 2025)

Outcome 1.b: The University demonstrates a commitment to being a leader in accessibility and inclusion

Indicator 1:

Increase senior leader knowledge and understanding of disability

Measure:

Proportion of senior executive leaders who have completed Disability Awareness training
- Baseline: to be established in 2026 from TrainMe data

Actions for this focus area:

1.1: Launch and promote an online accessibility and inclusion resource hub

Indicative timeline to commence: 2026
Executive Lead: Director, Diversity & Inclusion
Link to outcomes: 1.a

1.2: Run an awareness campaign around the value of staff disclosing demographic data - including disability, cultural identity, and LGBTIQA+ information - on WorkDay and the confidentiality and privacy protections around doing so¹

Indicative timeline to commence: 2026
Executive Lead: Director, Diversity & Inclusion
Link to outcomes: 1.a

1.3: Coordinate a University-wide approach to using data to support diversity and inclusion, drawing on expertise across University divisions and faculties as well as lived experience expertise voices²

Indicative timeline to commence: 2026
Executive Lead: Director, Diversity & Inclusion
Link to outcomes: 1.a