IP Ability is the IP Inclusive community for disabled people, carers and their allies working within the IP professions. We provide a supportive and informative network focusing on the issues relating to disability and long-term health conditions of all kinds, be they mental or physical, visible or invisible, permanent or temporary, sudden onset or progressive.
IP Ability intends to:
The IP Ability community is run by a small volunteer committee. If you’re interested in being part of the committee or taking more of an active role in the community, please email us or join our LinkedIn group. We would love to hear from you, whether with questions, offers of help or suggestions for future activities. Our current committee members are shown further down this page.
To receive updates about our activities and events, you can sign up to the IP Inclusive mailing list here and select IP Ability as one of your communities of interest. (Please note that if you’re already signed up to one of our mailing lists, when you submit the form you will be asked to “update your preferences”.)
Join our LinkedIn group, follow us on Twitter (@IP_Ability) or email us:
We’d like to begin our work by getting a better idea of current levels of support in the IP sector for disabled people and carers. We want to know how much awareness and understanding there is, among both employers and employees, about suitable workplace adjustments; whether people feel comfortable asking for support; and generally how “disability-confident” our organisations are. We’ll use this information to help shape our 2020 plans, allowing us to target support and awareness-raising to the areas where they’re most needed.
Please take a few minutes to complete our survey. It’s completely anonymous and you’ll be able to skip any questions you prefer not to answer. There are also plenty of comment boxes, as we appreciate that often people’s circumstances – and the support they need – are less than straightforward. Any information you can provide will be helpful.
This survey is open to all IP professionals, whatever their role and career level. Importantly, it’s just as much for people who don’t have disabilities or caring responsibilities as for those who do: this will give us valuable information about the extent of any problems that the survey identifies.
Click here to start the survey.
We hope soon to publish a collection of useful links and resources to help IP professionals become more disability-confident.
In the meantime, here are links to recordings of two relevant IP Inclusive webinars: “Enabling not disabling” (July 2019) and “Colleagues on the autism spectrum” (September 2019). You may also find our Mental Health and Wellbeing page useful.
We would love to hear from you with your suggestions, both about resources you already know of and those you’d like to find here. Please also check out IP Inclusive’s main Resources page for other materials relevant to diversity and inclusion.