Universal Design for Inclusive Participation

In Norway, it is a political goal to ensure equal participation for all people in society, regardless of functional ability. This means designing environments in a way that takes into account the diversity of the population, including diversity in functional ability. This is often referred to as universal design. Nevertheless, persons with disabilities experience barriers to participation in various areas of life such as higher education, working life, the housing market, leisure activities, and close relationships.

In this “village” we look more closely at what can be done to create better universal solutions and to dismantle disabling barriers.

(Photo: Marcus Aurelius/Pexels)

Relevant competancy

Students from all academic backgrounds are welcome, but it is particularly relevant for students with backgrounds in health and social sciences, medicine, education, and technological fields that address or can contribute to universal design of products, environments, programs, and services.

About the village

Universal design is about removing or reducing barriers through accessible design of political, social, and cultural institutions, built environments, and ICT. Accessibility to education, work, culture, and public spaces is especially important. Here we see that knowledge about designing accessible and inclusive solutions is relevant across different areas of society.

Universally designed solutions are those that benefit broad segments of the population—that is, accessible and inclusive solutions that will be useful to most of us. At the same time, there are some people who risk being unable to participate in society on an equal basis with others, and here universally designed solutions become especially important.

In this village we will work on understanding the content of the concept of universal design: What is it? In which areas do we need universally designed solutions? Who are relevant partners for creating such solutions? We will also identify areas where interdisciplinary collaboration, ideally including a user perspective, can contribute to more universal solutions that can benefit the entire population.

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