How do you design systems that enable participation for everyone? Professor in Management at UTS Business School, Prof Simon Darcy AM specialises in developing inclusive organisational approaches for marginalised groups, including people with disability. Simon brings an insider’s perspective to this work as he has a high level complete spinal cord injury and uses a power wheelchair. His work has shaped policy, practice and scholarship, advancing opportunities for people with disability and demonstrating the powerful role research can play in improving lives.
Transforming ableism through co-design
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Prof Simon Darcy and Prof Phillippa Carnemolla led the interdisciplinary research with Prof Sidney Newton, combining lived experience, design and technology. (Image: Andy Roberts)
“The systems that we're trying to transform are ones that privilege ableism and the able body within the way that we design everything. It's a pervasive network of beliefs, practices and social relations based on a bodily standard,” Simon said (see Fiona Kumari Campbell, 2019).
Simon was recently recognised in the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours with a Member of the Order of Australia Award for his significant contribution to tertiary education, as well as to accessible and inclusive environments.
The systems that we're trying to transform are ones that privilege ableism and the able body within the way that we design everything.
Navigating complexity in an exclusionary system
Simon’s research on disability, accessibility and inclusive organisations spans tourism, transport, employment, and major policy systems like the NDIS.
In asking what needs to be done to transform a social system that is exclusionary to 5.5 million people (21.4% ABS 2024) of the population that have a disability and their family members, Simon said there is no one clear answer. Instead, there’s a series of factors to think about as disability is easy to say but highly complex to understand.
For example, even within autism and neurodiversity as two categories of disability, each has its own subtleties to the way that individuals require accessible environments are designed and strategies for interpersonal communication practices to make activities inclusive.
“There's also the level of a person's support needs. The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) framework was only designed for people with, under the World Health Organisation’s definition, severe or profound levels of disability. However, this only accounts for 10% of all those with disability or approximately 550,000 people. Hence, one of the criticisms of the agency was how eligibility was articulated and what that would mean for the quantum of people that were going to be allowed to access the Scheme. The NDIS review is grappling with the complex issues as we speak.”
“When you put the number of disability types (conservatively 12 groupings) up on a matrix against the 5 levels support needs [WHO severity] going from independent, low and moderate to high and very high, you get some understanding of the system design required for this complexity.”
Creating change through collective action with Universal Design Goals and Codesign
Another design concept that can assist in creating more accessible and inclusive environments is universal design which seeks to be inclusive of all people across lifespan. This gives people an understanding of variables and areas that should be considered in making decisions for more inclusive design practices.
As Simon explained, “Universal Design is an inherently seductive concept but one that is difficult to operationalise across its 8 goals. As outlined by the University at Buffalo (click link for a fuller explanation of the goals) these include: body fit; comfort; awareness; understanding; wellness; social integration; personalisation; and cultural appropriateness”.
Centring of lived experience is not something that you can do easily. Time is required to build trust and understanding as to what the true issues are in any research context.
Simon powerfully argued that the world is changing in a disability sense, moving from people designing for disability to working with people with disability in co-design processes to ensure that the goals of universal design are appropriately shaped by lived experience in the highly nuanced context that they are being applied.
“Centring of lived experience is not something that you can do easily. Time is required to build trust and understanding as to what the true issues are in any research context,” he said.
“In looking at co-design, we want to value authentic experience. That includes not only valuing but paying for lived experience input into research processes and translating the findings into information that is easily understood and communicated not just to people with disability with communication support needs but to all the different professions that can assist with the transformation process. It requires respect, resilience and a collective action.”
“While disability is personal. Getting change is collective.”