UK Disability History Month

Disability affects us all. Whether we are disabled ourselves, are the parent or carer of a disabled person or we work or study alongside a disabled colleague or friend.

Did you know:

• There are 16 million disabled people in the UK
• 11% of children in the UK are disabled
• 21% of working age adults in the UK have disabilities
• More than 90% of disabilities and long term conditions are not immediately visible
• 17% of disabilities are present from birth. 83% are acquired during the course of someone’s life
• Many disabled people are themselves carers for others, with 27% of carers who completed Carers UK’s ‘State of Caring’ survey in 2022 saying they had a disability
• At Queen Mary, 5% of our staff and 9% of our students have shared that they have a disability.

Queen Mary University of London seeks to be the most inclusive university of its kind, anywhere, by 2030. We are proud to be a university that opens the doors of opportunity to anyone with the potential to succeed. Queen Mary's work to create an inclusive environment for our disabled staff and students is underpinned in our Culture, and Inclusion Enabling Plan.

"As Chair of the University’s Disability Inclusion Action Group (the University-level group that has strategic oversight of disability inclusion), I am delighted to introduce Queen Mary’s UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) programme for 2025.

This is the third year we have marked UKDHM as an institution and since last year we have continued to advance in several areas of our disability inclusion work.

Notable examples of our progress include: Ongoing work to improve our approach to reasonable adjustments for staff; launching a ‘Disability Inclusion Workplace Hub’, providing a range of information and resources disabled colleagues can access for support; reporting on our Disability Pay Gap for the second year in a row and continuing to support and engage with our Staff Disability Network to drive positive change

This year’s UKDHM theme of ‘Disability, Life and Death draws attention to the impact of the thinking that disabled people are second class or less than, which leads to many different pressures that can cut short disabled people’s lives.

At Queen Mary our Strategy 2030 sets out our commitment to becoming the most inclusive university of our kind, anywhere. We want to create an inclusive environment for work and study, which celebrates diversity and enables and empowers people with disabilities to thrive.

I invite you to explore our programme of events for UKDHM 2025 and to listen to and engage with the members of Queen Mary’s disabled community that will be platformed.”

Jonathan Morgan, Chief Governance Officer