Blogs

The Royal Society of Chemistry is committed to understanding and tackling the barriers that disabled people face within the chemical sciences. We are continuing to work on reviewing the accessibility of our own practices, as well as consulting with the community to help shape our work building a more inclusive chemistry culture for all.

We understand disability as a broad umbrella term comprising diverse experiences of mental and physical difference, both "seen" and "unseen".

The barriers that many disabled people currently face arise from how physical and social environments are structured, rather than being intrinsic to disabled individuals themselves. We are therefore working to contribute to the societal change necessary to ensure full and equal participation for disabled chemists.

Funding available to support chemistry's disabled community

Alongside this work, we are making funding available for community-driven projects to improve accessibility and disabled inclusion in the chemical sciences:

• We have created a specific call to support these projects through our Inclusion & Diversity Fund
• This special call is open to applications on 3 October 2022, and will close on 13 November 2022
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, as they are received
• We will consider individual applications up to the value of £5,000
• Funding greater than £5,000 may be considered for large-scale projects