Participation for those with disabilities
Last changed: 15 October 2021
Our university shall be accessible in that the work and study conditions shall function for all employees and students regardless of functionality.
To create an accessible work and study environment, physical, mental, cognitive and social working conditions must be taken into account. The employer, together with employees/students and the safety representative, must by law work to make the work and study environment accessible.
Support in the prevention work with accessibility
All employers shall conduct, together with employees and the safety representative, systematic work with the aim of preventing illness and accidents in the work and to combat discrimination and in other ways promote equal rights and opportunities. There are support and tools for this in the links below.
Support in the systematic work
- The Swedish Work Environment Authority’s prevention work for a more accessible work environment
https://www.av.se/arbetsmiljoarbete-och-inspektioner/en-tillganglig-arbetsmiljo/forebyggande-arbete-for-att-en-tillganglig-arbetsmiljo/ - The Swedish Work Environment Authority’s regulations on workplace design AFS 2020:1.
https://www.av.se/arbetsmiljoarbete-och-inspektioner/publikationer/foreskrifter/arbetsplatsens-utformning-afs-20201-foreskrifter/ - Systematic work environment management at SLU
https://internt.slu.se/stod-service/admin-stod/hr/halsa-och-arbetsmiljo/arbetsmiljo2/systematiskt-arbetsmiljoarbete/ - Working with active measures
https://internt.slu.se/stod-service/admin-stod/hr/halsa-och-arbetsmiljo/lika-villkor/aktiva-atgarder/
Support from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency
- Grants for assistive devices to the employer for an employee with a disability from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan)
Support in the work with our website
- Checklist for accessibility check on the web
https://internt.slu.se/riktat/administrativa-roller/webbpublicerare/webborganisation/tillganglighet-pa-webben/
Support for teaching staff
- Targeted study support for students with disabilities – what teachers need to know
- SLU EDU Talks, the SLU podcast on teaching and learning in higher education
Support for an employee with a disability
If you have a disability and need an adaptation in the work, contact your manager.
This may encompass physical obstacles, such as there only being stairs to the entrance to a lecture hall or there not being automatic door openers to the lecture hall. It may also involve information being difficult to access, for instance if the website can only be read by a specific web browser or that the website is not adapted for speech synthesis programs. It may involve there being a loop amplifier in a room, but that nobody uses it “because you can probably hear me anyway”.
Insufficient accessibility can be related to people at the workplace having strong perfumes that cause allergic symptoms in others, or that somebody brings an allergenic plant into the office that means that others cannot be in the rooms without risking their health.
Support for a student with a disability
If the study environment has insufficient accessibility, primarily bring it up with your course coordinator. You can also turn directly to the head of the department you are studying at.
It may involve there being a loop amplifier in a room, but that the lecturers do not use the microphone in the belief that they can be heard well anyway. It may also involve physical obstacles, such as there not being automatic door openers for the lecture hall. It may also be about the information about the education being difficult to access, for example that the website is not adapted for speech synthesis programs. Insufficient accessibility can also be related to people in the study environment having strong perfumes that cause allergic symptoms in others.
If you have a disability and need support and adaptation in your studies, there is information on the student website:
Contacts for managers
Do you need support, help or more information?
- Contacts for gender equality and equal opportunities (In Swedish)
- When it concerns adaptation of the physical work environment, contact the Division of Services, Security and Environment
- Occupational health services at SLU
Report faults in the premises in our various locations
Indadequate accessibility as defined in the Discrimination Act
Insufficient accessibility is a form of discrimination. It is when a person with a disability is disadvantaged by an employer or education provider not taking reasonable accessibility improvement measures so that the person will be given a situation comparable with people without a disability.
The law requires that operations must implement reasonable accessibility improvement measures. What reasonable measures are is determined by a comprehensive assessment in each individual case.
In the comprehensive assessment of what a reasonable measure is, consideration is also taken to the following:
- the financial and practical preconditions at the operation
- how lasting and extensive the relationship is between the private individual and the operation
- other circumstances of significance, such as the benefit of a measure.
Accessible work environment according to the Work Environment Act
The Work Environment Act is directed at all employees and students regardless of whether there is a disability or not. The aim is that the working conditions shall be adapted to people’s different cognitive, physical, mental and social needs and circumstances. The various aspects of the work and study environment need to interact for there to be prerequisites to do a good job and to prevent illness and accidents.
This may also concern a temporary adaptation of the work during a rehabilitation to facilitate a return to work.
- Work environment management at SLU (In Swedish)