In a profession plagued by chronic burnout, sometimes I wonder how I find my motivation and success as an early career researcher (ECR) with multiple chronic health issues. With administrative, teaching and research pressures mounting in academia generally, large proportions of academics report feeling overworked and emotionally drained. At the same time awareness is increasing of chronic illness and its impacts on individuals perhaps due to increasing numbers of Long-Covid cases, or even recent public attacks on chronic illness communities in the media. The proportion of staff in universities declaring health conditions or impairments sat at around 5.1% in 2020/21.
However, 1 in 5 of working age adults in the UK and around 15.2% of undergraduates have a known disability. Considering these statistics, is there an under-representation of disabilities, chronic conditions, invisible illnesses and neurodiversity amongst academic staff? Overall, we expect more of academia in terms of their humaneness and awareness of diversity, such as disabilities – but how well do these worlds merge?
