European Action on Disability within Higher Education5.249.157.123/Eadhesite/Images/Report/2012_3114_PR_EADHE_pub.pdfEuropean Action on Disability within Higher Education 527728-LLP-1-2012-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESIN

Executive Agency, Education, Audiovisual and Culture

527728-LLP-1-2012-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESIN

European Action on Disability within Higher Education

Progress Report Public Part


527728-LLP-1-2012-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESIN 2 / 17

Project information

Project acronym: EADHE

Project title: European Action on Disability within Higher Education

Project number: 527728-LLP-1-2012-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESIN

Sub-programme or KA: Erasmus Multilateral Project

Project website: www.eadhe.eu

Reporting period: From 01/10/2012

To 31/09/2013

Report version: 1

Date of preparation: 29/10/2013

Beneficiary organisation: Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Project coordinator: Rabih Chattat

Project coordinator organisation: Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Project coordinator telephone number: +39 051

Project coordinator email address: [email protected]

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. © 2008 Copyright Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency. The document may be freely copied and distributed provided that no modifications are made, that the source is acknowledged and that this copyright notice is included.



Executive Summary

EADHE Project acts on the underrepresentation of disabled people within the higher educational institutions, through inclusive approaches, actions and measures. Its fundamental objectives are:

- to size the major needs of disabled people within h-e institutions of different EU member countries, gather the best practices implemented to meet those needs and map institutions/countries excelling in given best practices;

- to carry out a piloting of gathered best practices, with the purpose to identify some fundamental services/facilities/practices within higher education that may be suitable to guarantee disabled people Europe-wide.

The Project defines the following groups as main target of its activities and aims: • university disabled students; • staff of universities services for disabled students and local professionals cooperating to

their activities of students support; • university teaching and not teaching staff.

The Project is powered by a partnership composed by seven universities and one NGO from seven European Countries (Italy, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark) boasting a rich variety of sociocultural backgrounds on disability and scientific traditions in special education, as well as a valuable multidisciplinary internal complementarity including education at all levels, anthropology, social work, social policies, training of non traditional learners, educational/social/working inclusion of disadvantaged minorities.

The fundamental theoretical position of EADHE Project comes from the general principle of inclusion of disabled people at all levels of society and therefore, of education (also acknowledged by 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) and the application of Indian economist Amyarta Sen's capability theory to disability. Grounding on such a framework, the Project devised a set of Survey tools aimed to gather information and knowledge on target groups' major needs and related good examples/practices, through which more than 400 students and more than 130 employees (at all levels) from the partner universities were involved during the first year of activities. The rich amount of collected data were analysed and organized in order to allow (during the second year of Project) an Europe wide exchange of good examples/practices identified, focusing on the needs resulted as more widely spread and/or more seriously unmet. During its second year of life, the Project will perform a great effort in reaching key persons among the target groups, real stakeholders and decision and policy makers at all levels (local, national, European) in order to make the overall European process of disabled people inclusion within higher-education system, benefiting and getting fostered and promoted, by EADHE Project's findings, results, outcomes and experiences.

For all information about the Project, its Partners, methods, results and for accessing the on-line Toolbox and also participating in piloting activities, please visit the official website www.eadhe.eu , full accessible for people with visual impairments and redirecting also to the Project's Facebook page and Youtube channel. On September 2014 in Leipzig (Germany), EADHE Project will organize and hold its final international conference: a great opportunity to exchange, discuss and get involved in the further developments of a European Action on Disability within Higher-Education.



Table of Contents

1. PROJECT OBJECTIVES ..................................................................................... 5

2. PROJECT APPROACH ....................................................................................... 7

3. PROJECT OUTCOMES & RESULTS .................................................................. 7

4. PARTNERSHIPS ................................................................................................ 12

5. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE ............................................................................... 14

6. CONTRIBUTION TO EU POLICIES ................................................................... 16

7. EXTRA HEADING/SECTION .................. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.



1. Project Objectives

EADHE Projects pursues the general and fundamental objectives of: • delivering a knowledge base issued by the project partners, about the major needs of

disabled people within higher education institutions and about the good/best examples/practices implemented to meet those needs, as well as a map of institutions/countries excelling in given best practices;

• providing enduring tools to progressively enlarge and enrich this knowledge base through the contribution of any other European higher education institution;

• setting up milestones for services/facilities/practices that should be taken into account by local policy-makers and should be guaranteed to disabled students all over Europe in order to improve their access and fully and equally participate to higher education.

The Project defines the following groups as main target of its activities and aims: • university disabled students; • staff of universities services for disabled students and local professionals (health care,

housing, transports, technological devices) cooperating to their activities of students support;

• university academic staff and administrative staff (with a special focus on positions closer related with disabled student's issues).

With regard to the organisations of the consortium, they have been involved into the survey and analysis activities and they will be involved in the forthcoming piloting activities. Organisations outside the consortium were reached and will be reached through universities' offices for disabled students and research department involved in the Project, being invited to contribute to the survey and to the planned piloting of good examples/practices. They will continue to be reached also by means of dissemination and kept informed about the Project outcomes and outputs. Generally speaking, all target groups have been and will be directly involved in survey and piloting activities. Specific focus groups and assessment and self-assessment tools for each target group and for every phase of the Project, were devised and made available within the online repository and Project's website.

The Project is impacting the advancement of research, both pedagogical and scientific, in the fields of disability, special needs, special pedagogy and social dimension of higher education, as far as the consortium is composed by universities and training agencies that have as core activity development and researches on those fields. Finally, the Project is building a knowledge base offering specific indications and tools for the needs and the tasks of each target group, at local, national and European level. Moreover, it



is expected to provide academic and administrative policy makers, concrete recommendations about disabled students needs and suitable strategies and actions to implement at their regard. At this purpose and in order to ensure the Project's the longest sustainability, Partners especially target with specific activities of dissemination and exploitation, the following groups, in addition to the three main ones above mentioned: • Families • Social services • Real actors from the labour market • Organizations and associations for people with disabilities, and related local partners • University managers • Local, national and European stakeholders • Local, national and European policy-makers

It's therefore in all these ways that the Project is expected to improve the performance, the quality and the equality of the whole academic offer for disabled people, enhancing their accessibility, autonomy and participation Europe wide.



2. Project Approach

The devise of EADHE Project was fundamentally based on the principle of general of inclusion of disabled people at all levels of society and therefore, of education, also acknowledged by 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. But the Project does not focus on the types or degrees of impairments that students have; rather its approach has focused on what needs the students have to study on equal terms with their peers. In its understanding of disability, the Project have been inspired by Amyarta Sen's capability theory applied to disability (Mitra, 2006) (Terzi, 2010). According to the capability approach, a disability (or a deprivation of capabilities) results from the interplay of three different factors: a person’s individual characteristics (e.g. impairment, gender, race), a person’s resources, and a person’s environment (physical, social, political and economic) (Mitra, 2006). Thus, impairment may not lead to a disability in itself; rather, it is the interaction between a person’s characteristics, resources, and environment that can lead to a disability. The approach thereby dissolves the distinction between the medical approach, according to which disability is defined based on a person’s individual characteristics making the problem essentially individual, and the social approach (according to which a disability only exists as a result of the environment, making the problem essentially social/political (Mitra, 2006). EADHE project seeks to map out needs which exactly relate to the interplay between the three factors described in the capability approach: the individual student’s degree of impairment, the individual’s resources and expectations, and finally, requirements in the study environment. Furthermore, the Project aims at providing an overview of the current practices in the six partner universities, both good practices in relation to meeting the students’ needs as well as areas in need of improvement those become barriers hindering inclusion if left unaddressed. In order to concretely reach its goals, during the its first year the Project has: - set up an online repository in six different languages, for collecting data about needs,

good practices and excellences among the Services for disabled students of Universities involved in the project and local professional networks (Work Package 2)

- analyzed and interpreted the above collected data and outlined a piloting strategy and plan, with an extremely rich knowledge on the single Partner and on the whole Consortium, which should be consider as a not exhaustive but representative picture throughout European higher institutions, about the inclusion of disable people (Work Package 3)

- devised an on-line "toolbox" for gathering, sharing and developing good examples and good practices, as fundamental milestone of the whole process of piloting (Work Package 4).



Partners dedicated a work package (n. 7) to evaluation and quality assurance, with the specific aim of continuously monitoring and evaluating EADHE Project, in order to ensure a high quality of processes, outcomes and outputs, and in compliance with the time plan and the budget. An Evaluation Plan – mainly based on CIPP (Context – Inputs – Process - Product) model by Daniel L. Stufflebeam (2002) - was developed in order to assure coherent and permanent evaluation actions, describe goals and aims of the plan and specify the methods, tools, and the timetable for the evaluation activities. Every six months, a survey was conducted in which all Project's partners were invited to participate and share their experiences, reflections, and opinions. The evaluation framework was implemented in order to support the Project, the Project manager and Project partners, possible stakeholders and external partners. The framework revealed itself useful also in supporting the project development and ensuring the achievement of high quality of the outputs. In total, four main exercises of evaluation were carried out during the first year (two half-year evaluations + two Project's meetings evaluations) The dissemination of results within the academic network and the related social communities has had and have the goal to make emerging the differences between the needs of the students with disabilities and the offered opportunities, together with possible tools and procedures of intervention, in order to raise the awareness of institutions and communities about the obstacles to the integration experienced by the people with disabilities within the institution of higher education. According to that, dissemination strategy is aimed to create actions and tools able to reach, with needed adaptations, different target groups. The main idea is to make the potential stakeholders converging to a competencies center represented by the online laboratory of the partnership, which will have a special section (toolbox) dedicated to the diffusion of good practices, guidelines, reports, implementation manuals and others, all deployed on a open source philosophy and technology. Dissemination strategy reposes on four main pillars: • The first pillar is designing a bi-lateral communication process, in order to increase the

involvement of students and make them participating to the different phases of the decisional process.

• The second pillar is to conceive all deliverables produced in the other WPs as potential dissemination tools, in order to disseminate achievements but also procedures, eventual failures with documented reasons and main issues managed by the leadership.

• The third pillar is the integration of the dissemination strategy with the communication activities of each partner, in order to reach other networks, to facilitate cross-fertilization with other local and European projects and enhance the possibility to affect local policies by involving stakeholders on a proximity base.

• The fourth pillar is the transfer of most adaptable practices and innovations in other sectors linked with higher education, in order to enforce networking with other agents of change in fields as labor market, enterprises, career advisers, social services, high schools, trainers and teachers, etc.

In order to ensure impact and sustainability of the Project results beyond the Project's lifetime, the involvement of decision makers at all levels will be consolidated; on the other



hand stakeholders and policy makers from partner and other universities will also be reached through specific guidelines to be delivered to them and dissemination/exploitation events, where the Project outcomes will be shown. Moreover, outcomes such as the Project's theoretical framework, the survey method, analysis method, piloting method and experimental results, will be used to raise interest among researchers working on the areas of handicap, special education, social inclusion, educational inclusion of non-traditional learners. To reach all these targets and institutions potentially interested the partnership will exploit their networks too: Erasmus bilateral networks, institutional networks of universities (Utrecht Network, Coimbra Group etc).



3. Project Outcomes & Results

During the first year, EADHE Project set up a theoretical framework based on the main socioeconomic theory of capability applied to disability and further structured for specific Project's purposes, with a multidisciplinary range of visions, practices and expertise featuring the approaches to disability and inclusion, on the six different European countries the Partners belong to. This original position represents an outcome the Projects brings on the table of international researches and debates about disability, special education and educational inclusion of non-traditional learners. Grounded on that theoretical framework, which has been built with the contribution, the representation and the agreement of every partner, the Project devised a set of Survey tools aimed to gather information and knowledge on:

- major needs of disabled students; - major needs of staff (academic and external) dedicated to support disabled students; - major needs and mainstream perceptions of academic (teaching and not teaching)

staff in general, about disabled students; - good examples/good practices implemented to meet the above found needs.

The tools herein referred are a strategy of survey ("Criteria grid"), a thematic survey (on-line) targeting disabled students ("On-line questionnaire") and three models of semi-structured interviews (contained in the "Criteria grid") for the side of the enquiry regarding university's staff. These represent investigative solutions and instruments replicable and adaptable in/to any other researches about disability, education, higher education and in a range of settings and fields of qualitative social sciences. Through them, the Project reached and involved more than 400 students and more than 130 employees (at all levels) from the six partner universities. Survey activities provided a huge and extremely rich amount of data that not only satisfy Project's objectives but also over surpass them, therefore allowing their transversal exploitation in further studies and researches on the matter, both locally and European wide. Data were organized, processed and interpreted according to an analysis method specifically devised by partners for Project's purposes. The analysis method (see "Analysis report") associated in original way different theories and scientific backgrounds coming also in this case, from the different scientific backgrounds of Project's partners, and allowing a coherent, harmonic and comparable analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected in six (very) different academic realities: it has to be considered by itself, a precious tool to be further exploited and a developed. The process of data analysis leaded to six local reports, one per participating university and a general one, based on them and focusing on the key aspects related to the fundamental Project's objectives. Indeed, through the activities of investigation and analysis of results during, during the first year of life the Project could coherently and completely fulfil its declared objective of delivering a knowledge base on the major needs of disabled students, major needs of supportive staff, major needs and mainstream perceptions of academic in



dealing with disabled students, as well as good examples/good practices implemented to meet the needs found.

But it was also capable to fulfil its second main objective of providing enduring tools to progressively enlarge and enrich this base through the contribution of any other European higher education institution. As matter of fact, the Project implemented an on-line open toolbox into which all tools (including methods, strategies, instruments of survey and analysis) are placed or going to be placed for a completely public and free fruition, and especially, for their application in new settings (as already happened in the case of the Krakow University of Economics, joining the Project as associated partner). The on-line toolbox (originally inspired by the concept of French philosopher Michel Foucault) represents the fundamental milestone for the starting Piloting activities. Through the exchange, piloting, assessment (within the Consortium and all over Europe) of good examples/practices potentially capable to meet major needs identified in the previous phases, the Project will be able to reach its final main objective of setting up milestones for services/facilities/practices that should be taken into account by local policy-makers and should be guaranteed to disabled students all over Europe in order to improve their access to higher education and to enable them to participate fully and equally in higher education.

The Project's main target groups could benefit of Project's results in terms of awareness about the solid facts of the inclusion of disabled students at the partner universities, with a special attention on needs, challenges, barriers and limits. Equally, they could also benefit of a knowledge about "what it works", i.e. good example/practices/solutions implemented and suitable to be replicated elsewhere. But what is more, the Project is offering them the opportunity to get involved in first person in a process aimed to improve the conditions of disabled people within higher-education institutions and by consequence, some within the whole society: this, in a way that promotes individuals' empowerment and make value of their free agency, avoiding any paternalism or dynamic of substitution. Finally, the Project, through continuous, systematic and transversal activities of dissemination that already during the first year reached an estimate audience of 9 thousand persons Europe wide, works on to promoting and favouring the enhancement of disabled people inclusion within higher education, at all levels of society and institutions potentially concerned with that. For all information about the Project, its Partners, methods, results and for accessing the on-

line Toolbox and also participating in piloting activities, please visit the official website

www.eadhe.eu , full accessible for people with visual impairments and redirecting also to the

Project's Facebook page and Youtube channel.



4. Partnerships

EADHE Partnership includes 7 universities and 1 NGO from seven different European Countries. These are:

- University of Bologna (Italy) - CEIS Formazione (NGO - Italy) - Ghent University (Belgium) - Aarhus University (Denmark) - Coimbra University (Portugal) - University of Leipzig (Germany) - University of Gothenburg (Sweden) - Krakow University of Economics (associated partner - Poland)

While operating to enlarge the participation of people with disabilities within the higher education institutions, EADHE Project affects the way the institutions of higher education organize and display their activities, in terms both of didactic and curricula and of governance. In this sense, the peculiar point of view of the Project, disability, offers a concrete possibility of development for the European university system as a whole, in redefining its methods and structures in terms of learning opportunities and skills development, both on the side of the learners and of the teachers, researchers and staff. Most important, the concrete possibility of operating successfully is based on a mutual implementation of locally acquired competencies onto a European scale. The European cooperation is therefore a condition necessary to activate this kind of intervention as well as the necessary framework into which display and disseminate its results and achievements. The partnership has been chosen carefully according to competences acquired and proven by each partner. This consortium's richness is especially given by the variety of sociocultural backgrounds on disability and scientific traditions in special pedagogy from which each partner come from and of whom each partner is an example of excellence.

An added value of the consortium is the representation of EU State members with quite different economic configurations: some partners are from countries with very stable economies, such as Sweden, Denmark and Germany; as well as some of them are from countries experiencing severe economic issues, such as Italy and Portugal; and finally, with a new University joining the Project from Poland, also a Country with one of the fastest growing economy in Europe is represented in the Project, with a considerable enrichment of the socioeconomic frame. Indeed national economies' trends are a key element to be taken into account, as far as a crisis configuration may result also in the reduction of funding set up for the needs of disabled people within the higher educational level (as happened in Italy since 2009). Of course, an action that pretends to be on European scale as this one on disability and higher education must take into account and should be coherent with and



adaptable to the great variety of socioecomic universes actually composing and featuring Europe. The original geographical distribution of the Project included Southern Europe, Continental Europe and Northern Europe, which already ensured a very good potential dissemination of the results throughout the continent. The association of Krakow University of Economic to the Project, even further improve the geographical coverage of the Project with a "direct access" to Eastern Europe and boost the dissemination potentialities of the Project. And, EADHE partnership is an open one, ready to be joined by any other institution/organization interested in its mission and sharing it. Finally, one of best and most valuable results – even if undeclared and "unforeseen" - of this Project (and of any other based on a European partnership), is that working hard, side by side and day after day, for a common and shared goal, in a plethora of different cultures, visions and practices, partners are not just working for their own and their Project's aims and purposes: more than that, in that way they are building themselves as European citizens and with them and through, building Europe in the reality of everyday life.



5. Plans for the Future

The following are task, activities and duties the Project is going to carry out during its second year of life.

1. To set up a jigsaw puzzle scheme for the organization and interpretation of collected data in order to outline a map of needs, related good examples/practices and excellence among the Services for disabled students involved, that should act as main orientation for piloting activities. (Work package 4).

2. To carry out the expected piloting process within the Partner's Institution and outside of them. The on-line toolbox will be the very center of piloting process, acting as open platform for the exchange and assess and good examples/practices, for creating new ones, getting in contact with Project's actors as well as with coherent professionals and stakeholders all over Europe. (Work package 4).

3. To analyze, compare and evaluate experimental results on which will be based the recommendations to local, national and European policy makers, about what should be commonly ensured and implemented Europe-wide, to allow not only the access but also the participation of disabled people (and other minorities) to higher education (Work package 4).

4. To continue and increase the efforts of dissemination, expected to intensify during the second year as products and results unfold. The Project's website will be constantly update with scientific results and about the development of Project's activities. Social networks profiles of the Project will continue play a key role in reaching especially current and perspective University students and young stakeholders. Partners will present the Project's and its results at all relevant and coherent national and international events such as conferences, symposia, workshops, etc. Moreover, on September 2014 they will organize and hold in Leipzig, a Project's final dissemination conference expected to be a major event to stimulate a European debate (and eventually, action) about the inclusion of disabled people within higher education.

5. To systematically exploit Project's results. At the beginning of the second year Partners

will devise an exploitation plan of its results, which will be concretely implemented by means of: - formal recommendations online published, addressed to target groups and local and

EC policy makers; - scientific contribution to on-going researches on the dominion; - new institutions/organizations joining the Project as associated partners (as it was the

case during the first year, of Krakow University of Economics); More specifically, long-term sustainability will be built investing very much and promoting the interest every core Partner hold in the Project as well as of any other actual and potential stakeholder at any level (Work package 6).



6. Finally, to continue the evaluation and quality assurance process which will also assess

the final results and outcomes of the Project. With the final evaluation, Partners will not just compare the actual achievements with the overall Project plan and expected products; they will also try to critically size and evaluate the actual and/or potential impact of the Project on its target groups and real stakeholders (Work package 7)



6. Contribution to EU policies

EADHE Project targets different qualifying dimensions of the Europe-building process, both on the side of the citizenship and in the side of the knowledge-based society. It operates to enlarge the rights of participation, education and personal self-determination of the people with disabilities, identifying in the European level the most appropriated framework and in the higher education a strategic field for this intervention. Thence, the Project acts on the underrepresentation of disabled people within the higher educational institutions, through inclusive approaches, actions and measures. This purpose coincides with the scientific and institutional aims of each participating partner and is coherent with several European policies, priorities and strategies. First of all and foremost, the Project fits with two fundamental specific objectives of Lifelong Learning Programme, namely: - specific objective d: «To reinforce the contribution of lifelong learning to social cohesion,

active citizenship, intercultural dialogue, gender equality and personal fulfilment» - specific objective f: «To contribute to increased participation in lifelong learning by

people of all ages, including those with special needs and disadvantaged groups, regardless of their socio-economic background»

Therefore, as far as the fundamental processes of sharing of good practices, knowledge, approaches, methods, competencies and experiences on which the Project lays, clearly represents the necessity and the strong will to extend to whole Europe the scientific, cultural and learning horizons - often limited within a department, an institution, a Country - the Project is clearly coherent with the operational objective of Erasmus Programme «To support the achievement of a European Area of Higher Education». But considering that the above mentioned processes of exchange will lead to innovative practices in education and training (as result of a circular and transversal process of synthesis and creation of something new, starting what already exists and "works"), the Project is also coherent with the second operational objective of Erasmus, i.e. «To facilitate the development of innovative practices in education and training at tertiary level, and their transfer, including from one participating country to others». More generally, the Project strongly addresses the LLP Priority "Social dimension of higher education"», aiming to widen the participation and raise completion rates of an underrepresented group such as disabled people. And at the same time, it targets LLP horizontal policy on special needs of «making provision for learners with special needs, and in particular by helping to promote their integration into mainstream education and training». Finally, the Project is complementary with «Education and Training 2020 Work Programme»'s strategic objective n. 3 on «promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship» and with target n. 5 «Poverty/social exclusion» of Europe 2020 Strategy.

Documents

European Action on Disability within Higher Education5.249.157.123/Eadhesite/Images/Report/2012_3114_PR_EADHE_pub.pdfEuropean Action on Disability within Higher Education 527728-LLP-1-2012-1-IT-ERASMUS-ESIN